The extension program at Concordia of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society (Quebec English branch) will screen four excellent films, each followed by a critical presentation from a psychoanalytic perspective. All the films have been nominated for or have won important film awards or been on several “year’s 10 best” lists. The films will be shown in their original versions with English subtitles.

Friday, November 3, 8:15 p.m, Room H-415: Rosetta (1999) directed by Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne (Belgium). A young woman stubbornly tries to achieve her idea of a “normal” life while handling the burden of taking care of her alcoholic mother. Presenter: Dushyant Yajnik, M.D.

Friday, November 10, 8:15 p.m, Room H-415: Being John Malkovitch (1999) directed by Spike Jonze. This surprising film raises complex questions about relationships and identity, such as: what would it feel like to be living in someone else’s body? Who do I see in someone’s eyes? Who is seen when others look in my eyes? Am I ever seen by others as myself? Presenter: Martin Gauthier, M.D.

Friday, November 17, 8:15 p.m, Room H-415: Kolya (1996), directed by Jan Sverak (Czech Republic). Is fatherhood a wonderful passage into manhood or the beginning of the end of a man’s own childhood or a commitment forged out of love? Presenter: Oscar Grossman, M.Ed.

Friday, November 24, 8:15 p.m, Room H-415: The Piano (1993) directed by Jane Campion. This haunting, complex film, set in a wet and desolate 19th-century New Zealand, is full of interesting characters and relationships that lend themselves to psychoanalytic discussion: a woman who is an elective mute and is obsessed with her piano, an enmeshed child burdened with having to be her mother’s voice, an emotionally constricted stepfather, etc. Presenter: Elaine Liverman, M.S.W.

Friday, December 1, 8:15 p.m, Room H-415: The Harry Potter Phenomenon. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Redeemed. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels stand squarely in the tradition of British children’s literature and clearly illustrate certain fundamental psychological themes that can be traced back to Dickens. With emphasis on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first in the series of four Potter books published so far, we will explore the literary, biographical, and social aspects of Potter-mania from a psychoanalytic point of view. Presenter: Charles Levin, PhD.

Free admission, but a donation would be appreciated to cover operating costs.