Drake University’s International Film Series continues Sunday, Oct 12, with a screening of “Devils on the Doorstep” (Guizi lai le), a film in Mandarin and Japanese with English subtitles.
The series is sponsored by the Center for Global Citizenship. All of the films, which are free and open to the public, will start at 2 p.m. in room 101 of Meredith Hall, 2805 University Ave.
Mary McCarthy, Drake assistant professor of politics and international relations, will introduce the film and lead a discussion afterwards.
“Devils on the Doorstep” tells the story of Ma Dasan, a Chinese peasant, and his neighbors who resent the Japanese “devils” who invaded and occupied China in the 1920s. Through a series of events, Ma Dasan learns the hard way that “devils” are not necessarily foreign and that war can turn the best of men into the worst.
The fall series will conclude on Sunday, Nov. 16, with “Earth,” a Hindi film with English subtitles. In this film, the hateful religious and civil wars that took place in India and Pakistan in 1947 are told through the eyes of a little girl, Lenny. She watches as a trainload full of the bodies of massacred Muslims arrives in their town, gangs march through the streets and Hindu tenements are burned to the ground.