FILMS on Thursday announces Fall 2025 slate

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FILMS on Thursday announces Fall 2025 slate

All films are shown at 7 p.m. in Macfarlane Auditorium in DePerno Hall and as always, are free and open to the general public.

Utica University has announced the fall schedule for its campus film series.

This series, known in recent years as “Films on Thursday,” has been a staple of the Utica campus and surrounding community for more than 50 years. For more than two decades, the film series torch has been carried by Dr. Jeff Miller, associate professor of communication and media, who curates and hosts the series.

All films are shown at 7 p.m. in Macfarlane Auditorium in DePerno Hall and as always, are free and open to the general public.

A campus map, parking information, and more are available by visiting utica.edu/film.

The 2025 Fall schedule:

AUGUST 28 – To a Land Unknown

(2024, dir. Mahdi Fleifel, Greece, 105 minutes)

Two Palestinian cousins grow increasingly desperate enduring hardship in the underbelly of Athens, all the while dreaming of someday making it to Germany.

SEPTEMBER 4 - Bitterroot

(2024, dir. Vera Brunner-Sung, USA, 105 minutes)

Divorced and recently laid off, a middle aged Hmong man avoids the pressure to remarry by spending his days drinking, singing, and foraging for coveted morel mushrooms to make ends meet, while caring for his aging mother on the family farm in rural Montana.

SEPTEMBER 11 - I, the Song

(2024, dir. Dechen Roder, Bhutan, 112 minutes)

A teacher in Bhutan’s capital is accused of appearing in a non-consensual pornographic video and sets out to prove her innocence, only to find that her lookalike from the video has disappeared from her hometown and left behind the mystery of a lost sacred song.

SEPTEMBER 18 - Pig at the Crossing

(2024, dir. Khyentse Norbu, Bhutan, 122 minutes)

After a young man abruptly dies in an accident, he finds himself in an unfamiliar realm between death and rebirth in which he must face the consequences of his past actions, choose to right his wrongs, and let go of his attachment to his former self or be trapped to wander in a dream-like in-between state forever.

SEPTEMBER 25 - Undercover: Exposing the Far Right

(2024, UK, dir. Havana Marking, 90 minutes)

This nail-biting documentary follows investigators from the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate as they track down far-right extremists and reveal their dangerous racist ideas and media-savvy tactics, during an extremely eventful 10 months for Britain that culminated with race riots last summer.

OCTOBER 2 - Nocturnes

(2024, India, dirs. Anirban Dutta & Anupama Srinivasan, 83 minutes)

A scientist and her indigenous assistant, on an expedition to study moths in the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, shine a light on the beauty, fragility, and hidden interconnections of the natural world in this deeply immersive documentary.

OCTOBER 9 - Black Dog

(2024, China, dir. Guan Hu, 116 minutes)

After his release from jail, Lang returns to his remote hometown of Chixia and finds work clearing the town of stray dogs before the Olympic Games, until he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog and the two lonely souls embark on a journey together.

OCTOBER 16 - Umbrellas of Cherbourg

(1964, France, dir. Jacques Demy, 91 minutes)

The delicate daughter of an umbrella shop owner falls in love with a handsome garage mechanic, but their whirlwind romance is cut short when the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, leaving her pregnant and forced to make hard choices.