Summer Film Series preview for Aug. 16

The organizers of the Summer Film Series at San Juan Community Theatre send along a preview of this week’s film. The showing starts at 7 p.m. Admission is pay-what-you-can. For this season only, fresh popcorn is available for free.

Hive

Drama (Albanian with English subtitles) — not rated
Run time: 1 hours, 25 minutes

Hive is the first film to win all three major prizes at the Sundance Film Festival and enjoys a 100% critics rating at Rotten Tomatoes. It is a searing drama based on the true story of Fahrije, who, like many of the other women in her patriarchal village, has lived with fading hope and burgeoning grief since her husband went missing during the war in Kosovo.

To provide for her struggling family, she pulls together the other widows in her community to launch a business selling a local food product — finding healing and solace in considering a future without their husbands — but their will to begin living independently is met with hostility. The men in the village condemn Fahrije’s efforts to empower herself and the women around her, starting a feud that threatens their newfound sovereignty and the financial future of Fahrije’s family. Against the backdrop of Eastern Europe’s civil unrest and lingering misogyny, Fahrije and the women of her village join in a struggle to find hope in the face of an uncertain future.

Hive is a pithy, devastating portrait of loss and our uphill journeys to freedom.

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