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Film Series

Film Series

Fall 2025: Europe Through Film

Since 2005, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies has partnered with the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center (DPAC) to use film as a lens to tell European stories. These short film series have explored themes such as cinematic storytelling through documentaries, animation, the Great War on film, contemporary Ukrainian cinema, and the spirit of 1968.

View past introductions & discussions

What can we learn about Europe by exploring its cinema? Based on an extended version of the Institute's film series each semester, the content of this course and film series will focus on the relationship between contemporary European cinema and the European ideas and realities it finds compelling in terms of social and imaginative power. The course will include some history of cinema, but emphasis will be laid on using cinema as a way of stimulating questions about the nature of Europe today. Open to students of all years and majors. Film series is open to all.

Admission to all films is free and not limited to course participants; however, tickets should be reserved on DPAC's website.

Please note that the film series is subject to change, and additional films (for in-person or virtual screenings) may be added. Film screenings are free, but tickets are required. Contact the DeBartolo Performing Arts ticket office at 574-631-2800 or order tickets online.

Five people in military camouflage stand in a golden wheat field. A woman has orange hair. Two men hold a guitar and a violin.

Soldiers of Song

2024

March 27, 2026

Soldiers of Song follows the extraordinary journey of Ukraine’s most beloved musicians as they unite their war-torn nation through the transformative power of music

Heavily destroyed white brick building with collapsed walls, debris, and charred interiors from fire damage.

Erase the Nation

2024

April 10, 2026

We will visit the places where the Russians committed crimes against the cultural heritage of Ukraine and try to answer why the Russians strive to destroy any traces of Ukrainian culture and the multicultural heritage of Central Europe.

Man in a dark suit holds a laptop inside a severely damaged building with exposed brick, debris, and torn tarps.

Timestamp

2025

April 17, 2026

Keeping schools open in Ukraine is an attempt to recreate at least some of the normal life they had before the war - until February 24, 2022 (and in some regions even earlier, in 2014). Without the interviews, narration and reenactments, Timestamp provides an insight into how the war is affecting the daily lives of students and teachers. The film has a mosaic-like structure: it explores how a school functions in-person and online in these terrible times, both on and off the frontline, how day-to-day life is intertwined with constant danger.

Green field heavily cratered by explosions, with a line of damaged trees and a burnt-out vehicle in a scorched area.

2000 Meters to Andriivka

2025

April 24, 2026

From the Oscar-winning team behind 20 Days in Mariupol, 2000 Meters to Andriivka documents the toll of the Russia-Ukraine war from a personal and devastating vantage point.

A person with light hair in a ponytail paints a landscape with a house and tall red flowers on an easel.

Mama's Voice

2025

May 1, 2026

In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ganna and her family escape and find refuge in Poland. There, they meet Kaja and her family. The deep bond the two mothers develop helps Ganna to confront trauma, loss, and the horrors of war. Mama’s Voice is a microcosm of the war’s impact on one Ukrainian family and a reflection on their enduring ties to the motherland–those who fled, those who stayed, and what binds them together.