“Follow the money,” the FBI source Deep Throat told the reporters unraveling the Watergate burglary in the film All the President’s Men.

A corollary for our time might be “name the evil.” If you want to understand what’s driving a particular conspiracy theory, advises rhetoric professor Stephanie Kelley-Romano, then try to characterize the perceived evil that motivates the theorists’ stories.

For instance, why did then–political aspirant Donald Trump boost the “birther” conspiracy, the lie that Barack Obama’s presidency was illegitimate because Obama hadn’t actually been born in the U.S.? What was the perceived evil behind that particular rhetoric?

“It’s pretty plain,” Kelley-Romano told a �ֲ���ý audience on Sept. 19. “It’s fear of a black president, right? It’s just blatant white supremacy and racism. And so, when we see that for what it is, it becomes a lot easier to understand the subsequent rhetoric.”

Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Stephanie Kelley-Romano poses in her Pettigrew Hall Office. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Kelley-Romano, associate professor and chair of rhetoric, film, and screen studies, was honored last winter with �ֲ���ý’ Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching. Giving her Kroepsch Lecture in Pettengill Hall last week, she treated a packed Keck Classroom to a quick tour of her ongoing conspiracy rhetoric research.

The talk, a sort of field guide to conspiracy rhetoric, was another in a welcome and timely series of �ֲ���ý examinations of truth and untruths. In fact, earlier in the day and also under the Kroepsch aegis, four faculty members described how the concept of truth figured in their teaching, a topic suggested by Kelley-Romano.

During that event, in recounting how he and Alex Dauge-Roth designed their First-Year Seminar scrutinizing the nature of truth, economist Michael Murray neatly summarized how the context has changed around the concept.

“The motivation was really our shared dismay and outrage at a climate in which alternative facts become something that people think of as real, and the dismissal of what one might learn through science,” Murray said. “We wanted somehow to provide students with a venue in which they could deal with that environment more richly and deeply.”

Malcolm Hill, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty (right), talks with Charles Franklin Phillips Professor of Economics Michael Murray and Professor of Psychology Amy Douglass, presenters at the panel discussion “Truth and How One Teaches It,” a prelude to Stephanie Kelley-Romano’s Kroepsch lecture later in the day. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Kelley-Romano’s late-afternoon lecture, distinguished by clarity, urgency, and humor, was another such venue. She focused on four subjects of her research: people who say they have been abducted by space aliens; the television blockbuster The X-Files; Trump’s conspiracy rhetoric; and the Fox News treatment of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

“A conspiracy is a group of people who are doing something in secret for harmful or evil reasons,” Kelley-Romano explained. “And so a conspiracy theory is the belief that there is a group of people who are doing something in secret for harmful or illicit reasons.

Further, she asked, “What are the defining characteristics of it? Thematically, what are the things that unite it? Formally, what are the common argumentative strategies?” And in the case of television’s X-Files and the Kavanaugh hearings, “what are the visual trappings?”

A characteristic of conspiracy rhetoric, and a recurring device in the show The X-Files, is the mixing of fact with fiction as a means of lending credibility to the latter, says Kroepsch Award honoree Stephanie Kelley-Romano. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

As a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas in the mid-1990s, Kelley-Romano found rhetoric around human-alien encounters becoming something of a theme in her life. She was an obsessive fan of The X-Files, whose main characters, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, were bent on exposing a federal plot to conceal the earthly activities of extraterrestrials.

“I didn’t know if I wanted to be Mulder and Scully or if I wanted to date them, but I knew I wanted more of them,” Kelley-Romano told the �ֲ���ý audience. “And so, since I was in graduate school, I had to write about it, because I couldn’t [otherwise] justify watching it.”

Meanwhile, defying her Ph.D. adviser (“You’ll never get a job,” he warned), Kelley-Romano interviewed 100 professed abductees to form the basis of her dissertation, on the rhetoric of alien abduction.

A characteristic of conspiracy rhetoric is the mixing of fact with fiction as a means of lending credibility to the latter. An X-Files motif was the use of actual or carefully replicated news footage, often with text superimposed on it that serves the fictional plot. (One episode references the famous Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in revealing that it was actually a key X-Files character, the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who killed the president.)

In 2012, Arizona conspiracy theorist Mike Zullo announces at a press conference that Obama’s birth certificate is a forgery. The birther conspiracy that dogged President Obama was fueled by “a fear of a black president,” explains Stephanie Kelley-Romano, associate professor of rhetoric, film, and screen studies. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Fact vs. fiction gets complicated in a hall-of-mirrors way. Kelley-Romano noted that some professed abductees believe that programs like The X-Files are actually part of a real federal disinformation campaign. If it’s just science fiction, the logic goes, who would believe it? So a drama about a government conspiracy to hide the truth about extraterrestrial activities is, in reality, itself part of such a conspiracy.

Some kind of perceived evil is an organizing principle or orbital center for a given conspiracy theory.

“The blurring, and the inability to make these distinctions, is part of the problem with the perpetuation and proliferation of conspiracy belief,” Kelley-Romano said.

Conspiracy theories exploit the human need for coherence in stories, something that communications theorist Walter Fisher called narrative fidelity. “We like it when things seem to hang together,” Kelley-Romano explained. Yet “narrative fidelity or narrative rationality and rational argument are not always in sync.”

Which brought us to the role of evil in conspiracy rhetoric, a concept Kelley-Romano attributed to Earl Creps of Northwest University.�� For Creps, some kind of perceived evil is an organizing principle or orbital center for a given conspiracy theory. In order to bust that theory, we need to identify the evil that the conspiracy believers are perceiving and responding to.

Kelley-Romano’s witty, energetic style captivated her listeners. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“And how can we get at combating that, right? Because we all know that we are not going to argue…any type of new mindset [into] most conspiracy believers.”

Playing on the desire for narrative fidelity, The X-Files rendered as art another tactic near and dear to conspiracy theorists: the kind of associative “logic,” Kelley-Romano explained, “whereby things that come in concurrent succession are somehow argumentatively or rationally related, which is not necessarily the truth.”

She admitted, “That was part of why I loved watching the show. I loved the intellectual calisthenics and the illogic of it.”

But what’s fun and lovable over pizza on a Friday night becomes something different and much less fun when it’s a factor in mainstream political discourse, including conspiracy rhetoric à la Trump (whom she dubbed “the conspiracy president”), and Fox News coverage of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

Borrowing a phrase from Wabash College’s Jeffrey Mehltretter Drury, Kelley-Romano held up Trump as a great example of the “rogue ethos”: the “notion that your credibility as a politician comes from the fact that you’re outside the system. You’re willing to shake things up. You’re willing to go rogue.”

However, as Drury made clear, the rogue has to profess populist solidarity. “You can’t do it for your own personal gain,” Kelley-Romano said. “It has to be for the people.”

President Trump is an example of the “rogue ethos” at work, says Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies Stephanie Kelley-Romano. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Trump positions himself as a latter-day Rick Blaine, the Casablanca protagonist who wants to stay out of the fray but finally has to step up and do the right thing. “I don’t want to talk about this,” Trump might say, “but when I walk down the street, they’re saying, ‘Don’t give up. Don’t give up.’

“And so he has to talk about it, right?”

Trump is also a master of rhetorical questioning, which has the desired effect of spreading doubt and suspicion without leveling actual charges that would require evidence. “He’s just wondering. He’s just asking,” Kelley-Romano said. “And he manages to absolve himself of any type of responsibility.”

With a shout-out to advisee and collaborator Claire Sullivan ’19, whose senior thesis examined the role of conspiracy rhetoric in Fox News’ Kavanaugh coverage, Kelley-Romano used the 2018 hearings as an example of “tactical framing.” (The concept comes from Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communication and the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.)

A Donald Trump tweet from Stephanie Kelley-Romano’s presentation shows the president’s skill with rhetorical questions.

That’s when news organizations turn their attention away from actual news content and instead, report “on the coverage or the positioning of something,” she explained.

“So rather than focus on what was actually being said during the testimony, there was this meta-narrative that unified the Fox News coverage — which was, this is actually a conspiracy by the Democrats to thwart the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, and, in particular, out of revenge for the Clintons.”

She added, “When we think about that problem of rhetorical evil, what is this conspiracy responding to? I would argue, that this conspiracy is hell-bent on defending a particular way of American life — of privilege and white, heteronormative men. And specifically, Brett Kavanaugh.”

Stephanie Kelley-Romano as seen through her Kroepsch Award. (Photograph by Jonathan Cavallero)

For someone who teaches film and screen studies, there aren’t always ready opportunities to bring students to the birthplace of one of the world’s greatest directors.

But there’s a great opportunity in Maine, and that’s the house in Cape Elizabeth where John Ford — creator of film classics like Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Grapes of Wrath — was born, to Irish immigrant parents.

And that’s not the only Ford-related site in Maine that Jon Cavallero and his students visited when Cavallero last taught “The Cinema of John Ford,” in 2015: In Portland, there’s Ford’s longtime summer home on Peaks Island, the church he attended, neighborhoods of his youth like Munjoy Hill and Gorham’s Corner, and even a statue honoring the director in that last location.

Ford’s Maine origins are a point of pride for the state, and Cavallero has a hand in the latest celebration of the director. The statewide festival comes to �ֲ���ý on of the 1940 Oscar-winner The Grapes of Wrath, based on John Steinbeck’s novel.

Cavallero presents the film on behalf of the rhetoric, film, and screen studies department, and will moderate a panel following the screening.

A location still from “The Grapes of Wrath,” 1940. (Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2009632217/)

“When you look at the pantheon of directors in the history of global cinema — not just Martin Scorsese and other Hollywood directors but directors like Akira Kurosawa in Japan or Abbas Kiarostami in Iran — they all list Ford as one of their influences,” Cavallero says.

Available for rental or from various streaming services, The Grapes of Wrath follows Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) as he returns to his family farm after four years in prison, only to find that the Joads are fleeing dustbowl Oklahoma and joining the desperate ranks of impoverished “Okies” heading for California.

Speaking to on Jan. 29, Cavallero explained that as Ford read Steinbeck’s novel and prepared for the film, he felt a connection to Tom Joad, particularly Joad’s goodbye scene where he tells his mother, “I’ll be everywhere — wherever you look.”

“That was the one that really connected with him,” said Cavallero. “It made him imagine his Irish parents and what it must have been like for them to leave Ireland and come to the U.S. back in the 19th century — it meant that it was a goodbye, possibly forever.”

We spoke to Cavallero about John Ford a few hours after the professor’s Maine Calling appearance.

What makes The Grapes of Wrath relevant today?

Jane Darwell as Ma Joad. (Courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

One way to talk about Grapes is to say “This is a movie about the Okies and their migration to California during the Dust Bowl and the Depression.” And that’s all true.

But another way to frame it — and this is what we’re hoping to do with the discussion afterward on Tuesday — is to say, “These are people that are forced to migrate because of a man-made environmental disaster. And in the course of their migration they face all kinds of prejudice and significant issues of income inequality. These forces put pressure on the family and ultimately fracture it” — and all these things are relevant today.

How does the film represent Ford at his best?

I’m not here to say Steinbeck wasn’t an artist or a talented writer. He obviously was. But I think Ford adds something to the story that is not in the novel: He adds the visual.

There’s one scene where Ma Joad is getting ready to leave and she’s going through her possessions, and she holds up these earrings, and she’s looking at a mirror. As she looks at herself in the mirror she smiles, and then the smile fades away and she lets the earrings down. And there’s no dialogue — it’s completely a partnership between the viewer and what they’re seeing on the screen.

We’re writing her story for her. And it’s an amazing little piece. It’s very subtle and, like a lot of Ford, so visual.

What does it mean to teach about Ford in his native state?

From left, Dorris Bowdon, Jane Darwell and Henry Fonda are shown in a scene from John Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940). (Courtesy of 20th Century Fox)

His connection to Maine is important to me. It’s not often that you can teach a class where you can actually take students to the house where someone like Ford was born, or to his statue, or to the places that helped to form him and his perspective.

When we did the Ford course, the students made eight-minute video documentaries about different aspects of his life and work, and they presented them at the Maine Irish Heritage Center in Portland [formerly St. Dominic’s Church, serving the largest Irish Catholic parish north of Boston].

The space where the students presented is the space where Ford was baptized and where he served as an altar boy. So they’re standing in the same place where Ford learned about his Catholic faith, and it was incredibly powerful.

The other panelists at the Feb. 5 screening at �ֲ���ý are Rachel Desgrosseilliers, director of Lewiston’s Museum L-A; Fowsia Musse, executive director of Maine Community Integration (formerly African Immigrant Association); and Marcelle Medford, Mellon Diversity and Faculty Renewal Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer in sociology at �ֲ���ý.

A portrait of John Ford by Edward Kinsella (detail).

When the time came for the students and professor in the upper-level course “Film Festival Studies” to produce an actual festival — the inaugural �ֲ���ý Film Festival — there were friends ready to lend a hand.

Friends like Academy Award–winner Stacey Kabat ’85, Anike Tourse ’92, Nicole Danser ’15, Taylor Blackburn ’15, and Alexandra Morrow ’16, all creators of short films that will be shown at the festival. And like Constance “Stanzy” Brimelow ’16, who, as an associate producer of a , will take part in a festival panel on women in media.

Rhetoric professor Jon Cavallero leads his “Film Festival Studies” class in Pettigrew Hall on March 19, two days before the opening of the �ֲ���ý Film Festival. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

And Trey Callaway P’20, a prominent producer and screenwriter who will lead a screenwriting master class on the festival’s final day. And Michael Sargent, a �ֲ���ý psychology professor whose filmmaking debut has its premiere at the festival: Witchcraft Blue, a feature-length documentary about .

The willingness of these folks to work with the 14 “Film Festival Studies” students as they organized exemplifies a collateral benefit of the �ֲ���ý education. Rhetoric professor Jonathan Cavallero opened the �ֲ���ý network of industry contacts, many of whom he has met or taught since coming to campus in 2013, to the class knowing that his students might benefit from those connections later on.

Even as the festival, and �ֲ���ý’ overall exploration of film, is benefiting from them now. “�ֲ���ý people who are in film want film at �ֲ���ý to grow,” says one of Cavallero’s students, Luc Alper-Leroux ’20 of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “So they did everything they could to help.”

The �ֲ���ý Film Festival features Frank Serpico, a documentary profile of the reform-minded undercover policeman whose story was fictionalized in a hit 1970s film, on March 23.

Another way the festival says “�ֲ���ý” is through its involved with social and environmental justice. “That’s one thing that we really wanted to do with this festival,” says Nate Merchant ’18 of Los Angeles, a rhetoric major focusing on screen studies.

“With the overarching theme of social justice, we wanted to find different narratives that can influence people in powerful ways.”

While there are some exceptions on the (notably the midnight screening of the 1998 teen thriller I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, written by Callaway), socially conscious films dominate the festival schedule. They delve into topics as timely as police misbehavior (e.g., Frank Serpico, a documentary profile of the reform-minded undercover cop); ethnic identities in the U.S. (White Rabbit, following the travails of a Korean American performance artist); and the consequences of rape (The Light of the Moon).

Clockwise from upper left, rhetoric professor Jon Cavallero is shown with some student organizers of the inaugural �ֲ���ý Film Festival: Nathaniel Merchant ’18 of Los Angeles, Luc Alper-Leroux ’20 of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Gillian Coyne ’19 of New York, and Marisa Sittheeamorn ’18 of Bangkok. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Alper-Leroux adds that the class has sought out films that bring international perspectives to international concerns. For instance, he says, “we often talk about climate change, but it’s only ever within our context” as Americans. Hence the screening of Anote’s Ark, exploring the topic of climate change from the standpoint of Kiribati, an island nation that will likely be underwater within this century.

An afternoon session of short films by �ֲ���ý alumnae and an evening screening of Witchcraft Blue open the festival on March 21. Sargent’s topic might seem lurid at first, but Cavallero points out that what the psychology professor is really examining is body positivity “and getting to a comfortable place with that.”

Cavallero explains, “These performers outwardly seem quite confident in their bodies, but Michael is able, through his interviews, to reveal that there’s an inner dialogue. It’s often a struggle for them to get on stage and perform.

“What I really appreciate about his film is that it reveals exactly how much his subjects trusted him” to reveal so much in a public forum. “It’s an impressive film, and very much is in line with what we’re trying to accomplish with the festival.”

A scene from Sonita, showing on March 24.

The �ֲ���ý Shorts session, meanwhile, exclusively presents work by alumnae. Among them are Tourse, who directed America; I Too; writer-producer-editor Morrow (The River Behind My House and The First Coast); Academy Award winner Kabat, producer of Strong at the Broken Places: Turning Trauma to Recovery; Danser, who directed F***; and Blackburn, a former �ֲ���ý debater who wrote and executive-produced Where Things May Grow.

In addition to Brimelow ’16, �ֲ���ý-connected members of the Women in Media panel include Bumble Ward P’17, an industry publicist whose clients include director Sofia Coppola, and Amy Geller ’96, who co-directed, with Allie Humenuk, The Guys Next Door (2016), a documentary about a truly inspiring Maine family.

In this era of #MeToo, it’s timely “to have a panel on women in media, given the current climate in Hollywood, specifically. It’s really socially-politically pertinent and I think it will really resonate on campus,” says Gillian Coyne ’19, a double major in rhetoric and French from New York City.

The �ֲ���ý Film Festival shows Father and the Bear, about an actor dealing with dementia, on March 24.

The social justice emphasis “happened organically,” Coyne notes. “It came about from us watching anything and everything, from Sundance selects to �ֲ���ý grads’ work. It was something that the class winnowed out of all the films we watched.

“It was like playing a semester-long Tetris game, deciding what fits in and what gets priority. It turned into really fun, sometimes heated, discussions — filling up all the whiteboards, and who’s voting for what, and how do you prioritize the message that you want to get across.”

“Festivals have this image of famous people getting together to watch movies,” says Cavallero. “But the students have not seen this just as an opportunity to bring films to campus, but an opportunity to lead conversations on campus about important issues that this community and others around it are facing.

A scene from Michael Sargent’s Witchcraft Blue.

“So the festival is right at home in a rhetoric department, because it is very much about engaging the public discussion and being informed citizens. I’m really proud of the way that they’ve done this.”

Looking back to rhetoric professor Bob Branham’s 1992 shoe-industry documentary Roughing the Uppers and even earlier, �ֲ���ý has had a close relationship with the moving image. And as �ֲ���ý has redefined the liberal arts education as something that readies students for a life of meaningful work, it’s hard to think of a better academic course for that job than organizing a film festival.

For one thing, it’s assertively cross-disciplinary. “One of the things that I’ve been most impressed by, since I came here, is the number of people who teach film and the number of departments that those people are in,” says Cavallero.

“It’s a way of bringing in different perspectives and really having interdisciplinary conversations. Our hope for this year’s festival is that that happens.”

In addition, while the film-festival course provides ample grounding in theory, there was plenty of hands-on work to do too. “The skills that we’ve developed are really versatile and can translate into the workforce,” says Marisa Sittheeamorn ’18 of Bangkok — everything from catering arrangements to negotiating distributor fees. “It’s all been really interesting and new.”

The six films that are screening at the second annual Tournées Film Festival this week and next have two things in common: They’re all in French, and they were chosen by current �ֲ���ý students.

Otherwise, the films range widely in setting, style, and message — from a classic Jean-Luc Godard film to a coming-of-age story in Tunisia to an animated dystopia. ��

“One of my personal goals for the festival is to show the many different cultures, viewpoints, animations, and people that make up the French-speaking world,” says Trevor Fry ’19 of Groton, Mass., who along with Gillian Coyne ’19 of New York selected the festival films in the spring. ��

A promotional still from A peine j’ouvre les yeux (“As I Open My Eyes”), a Tunisian film to be screened at the Tournées Film Festival.

The festival, which began Oct. 30 and runs through Nov. 11, is sponsored by the , which promotes French-American cultural exchange and supports film festivals on many college campuses.

The student organizers chose films from a list of several dozen that the foundation provided. One film had to be a classic in French cinema, but otherwise, they had plenty of wiggle room.

To pick the films and organize the festival, Fry, Coyne, and other French and francophone studies students drew from what they’d learned in their classes and in their work in the community: that French is spoken not only in France, but in African countries, in Canada, and in the United States.

“Our students are very sensitive to the idea that the French-speaking world is not just France, and that the francophone world has been dealing with this conflicting postcolonial history,” says Laura Balladur, a lecturer in French and francophone studies who advised the student organizers.

They also know that the multiplicity of French-speaking cultures extends to Lewiston.

“In Lewiston we have those with Franco-American roots, but we also have a big [French-speaking] immigrant population,” says Alyssa Frost ’18 of Boxford, Mass., a student organizer. “It’s up to us to go through all the synopses and find what resonates best with our community.”

Alyssa Frost ’18 of Boxford, Mass. and Avery Margerum ’18 of Wyncote, Pa., pose with a poster for the Tournées Film Festival, starting Oct. 30. As members of the Francophone Club, Frost and Margerum helped organize the festival. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

While five films will be screened at the Olin Arts Center, Examen d’état, a documentary about Congolese students preparing for a national exam, will be screened at the in Lewiston, preceded by a reception with Congolese music and food.

The Franco Center, a community hub for French speakers and learners in Central Maine, serves both Franco-Americans and people with roots in French-speaking African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“It’s important for people to be able to see themselves in films like the one we’ll be showing,” says Jacynthe Jacques, language and cultural programs director at the Franco Center, “and it’s important for the community living here to be able to see other French-speaking cultures around the world, how different they are, but also how similar.”

A promotional still from Examen d’état (“National Diploma”), a film to be screened at the Tournées Film Festival. Examen d’état will show at the Franco Center.

Each film will be followed by a panel discussion with students and faculty from a range of departments, like German, anthropology, and gender and sexuality studies.

The goal, Fry said, is to show that the French language is relevant and accessible from any perspective. ��

“Lewiston’s francophone heritage is sparkling, and this festival should serve as a tool to continue its renaissance,” Fry says. “By having a community-wide program with publicity both on campus and off, the film viewings and discussions can work as bridges between various francophones or toward people who are simply interested in learning more about our world.”

+Click here to see the festival lineup.

A scene from Kivu Ruhorahoza’s 2015 film “Things of the Aimless Wanderer.”

Kivu Ruhorahoza, an award-winning Rwandan filmmaker, presents two of his films at �ֲ���ý College: 2015’s Things of the Aimless Wanderer at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 29, and Ruhorahoza’s 2011 feature debut, Grey Matter, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 2.

Rwandan filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza presents two of his films at �ֲ���ý.

Both screenings take place in Room G52, the Keck Classroom, in Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk). Sponsored by the French and francophone studies department at �ֲ���ý, the screenings are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8293.

Ruhorahoza’s second feature film, Things of the Aimless Wanderer comprises a series of cryptic and loosely connected narrative shards. Each depicts an uneasy encounter between an African woman and a male figure of authority or menace, be it a 19th-century white explorer, a 21st-century Western journalist or a Rwandan man performing reconnaissance for a shadowy internal agency.

In each story, a female figure is an object of lust, surveillance, fascination or violence, inevitably disappearing from the narrative. Every disappearance becomes a sort of chorus, punctuated by enigmatic images and haunting musical soundscapes.

Grey Matter is the first feature-length narrative film produced in Rwanda by a native Rwandan filmmaker. Set in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, this self-referential film-within-a-film depicts the vision and trials of a determined filmmaker as he tries to produce his first feature, The Cycle of the Cockroach.

That trenchant drama about a brother and sister dealing with the aftermath of genocide finds no support from agencies only interested in funding upbeat policy-friendly films. As the filmmaker borrows recklessly from a loan shark, Cycle plays out on the screen, subtly measuring the horror and systematic madness of events hardly unique to Rwanda, while offering insight into the nature of political violence.

Ruhorahoza was born in Kigali in 1982. A self-taught filmmaker, he won the award for Best African Short at Montreal’s 25th Pan African International Film Festival and Best Short at the Kenya International Film Festival in 2009 for his short film Lost in the South.

Slant Magazine observed that Ruhorahoza employs film to “communicate the unthinkable consequences of mass tragedy” — the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

Grey Matter received a Jury Special Mention for Best Emerging Filmmaker and won the Best Actor award at the 2011 TriBeCa Film Festival. The film went on to win, among other honors, the Grand Prize at the Tübingen French Film Festival; Best Director and Signis Award at the Cordoba African Film Festival; and the Jury Prize at the Khouribga African Film Festival.

Ruhorahoza has taught directing and screenwriting workshops for various organizations and has served as a mentor at the TriBeCa Film Institute for underprivileged aspiring filmmakers from New York.

A scene from “12 O’Clock Boys,” featured at the Emerge Film Festival.

As the Emerge Film Festival returns to Lewiston-Auburn this Thursday, members of �ֲ���ý College will have important parts to play in the event’s second year.

“�ֲ���ý’ involvement with Emerge has become very diverse and extensive,” says festival adviser Jonathan Cavallero, a film expert and assistant professor of rhetoric at �ֲ���ý.

“This year, �ֲ���ý students, alumni, faculty and staff are playing essential roles. They will serve on the Student Film Festival jury; moderate post-screening Q&As; design, manage and organize the festival’s technology needs; and sit on panels for post-film discussions.” Cavallero helped organize some of the faculty-led discussions that will follow screenings at the festival.

The festival runs from Thursday, April 9, to Sunday, April 12. Venues include the Franco Center, The Public Theatre, Community Little Theatre, Guthrie’s Independent Theater and Free Grace Presbyterian Church. VIP passes are $75, while regular film passes to all events are $35. At the door, tickets are $5 for matinee, $10 for evening��— dependent on available seating.

Students with valid student IDs attend for free. For a complete festival schedule and additional information, please visit .

“I’m delighted to see the involvement of �ֲ���ý people in Emerge,” Cavallero said. “Partnerships and collaborations like these strengthen the bonds between our campus community and the larger Lewiston-Auburn community.

“By bringing a diverse set of films to L/A, Emerge enriches classroom experiences and creates a space where students with an interest in film can interact with working filmmakers.”

At 1 p.m. Saturday, April 11, at The Public Theatre, Emerge will present two thought-provoking Maine premieres, American Cheerleader and 12 O’Clock Boys, followed by a panel of filmmakers, professors and coaches for a deeper discussion of youth and American culture.

American Cheerleader follows the journey of two high school teams vying for the coveted National High School Cheerleading Championship. Overcoming challenges through discipline, dedication and teamwork, 12 girls from New Jersey and 12 from Kentucky redefine what it means to be an American cheerleader.

Set in Maine, “Bluebird” features John Slattery from “Mad Men.”

To Baltimore locals, the 12 O’Clock Boys are hooligans — a group of urban dirt-bikers that perform death-defying stunts at excessive speeds through traffic and impressively evade the hamstrung police, who must adhere to a no-chase policy to maintain public safety. Yet they are heroes to Pug, a bright, young adolescent living in the city’s dangerous Westside neighborhood with his charismatic mother Coco.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano, associate professor of rhetoric at �ֲ���ý, will moderate the discussion of the two films with panelists Rebecca Fraser-Thill, lecturer in psychology; Aimée Bessire, visiting associate professor of art and visual culture; and Jennifer Roy, Lewiston High School cheering coach, as well as the co-directors of American Cheerleader, James Pellerito and David Barba.

“The partnership with �ֲ���ý faculty adds a dimension to the festival that we know will enrich the audience’s viewing experience,” said Laura Davis, president of the film festival’s board.

She adds, “For anyone who loves to watch a great movie and then discuss it, imagine having that insightful conversation with the actual filmmaker, crew and cast members. We are hosting more than 50 filmmakers at the festival, representing 90 percent of the films we are screening.”

Emerge’s Student Film Festival, which presents the work of high school filmmakers, will be juried by �ֲ���ý students and faculty. The judges are Cavallero; Kelley-Romano; two members of the class of 2015, Taylor Blackburn and Julian Hackney; and Rosy DePaul of the class of 2017.

Accepted student films will be screened at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 11, at the Franco Center’s Heritage Hall.

The Emerge Film Festival is a nonprofit organization, established in Maine in 2014, that works with local and international filmmakers. Documentaries and short to feature-length films are presented during four days of screenings, panel discussions, and receptions.

“In addition to strengthening the bonds of community between those who live, work, and study here, Emerge makes Lewiston-Auburn a destination for visiting filmmakers and movie fans,” Cavallero says.

“By sparking a love of film and an understanding of its social, cultural and political power, the value of the festival extends well beyond this weekend and well beyond L-A.”

The Harward Center will be providing a free shuttle for �ֲ���ý students. The shuttle will make runs to festival venues departing from Chase Hall 3-6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday.

Jonathan Cavalerro, assistant professor of rhetoric (Mike Bradley/�ֲ���ý College)

The sight of a raging giant ape on a skyscraper brings out the wise guy in most of us. But when Jonathan Cavallero first taught a class at �ֲ���ý, he found that the classic film King Kong�� evoked, more than anything, the intellectual spark of �ֲ���ý students.

As a candidate for the rhetoric faculty, film studies specialist Cavallero made his teaching presentation in February 2013. He taught a class in Charles Nero’s course “White Redemption,” which examines movies that use the black experience to, in effect, showcase the goodness of white people.

King Kong was the topic when Cavallero led the session. Having taught at the University of Arkansas and Penn State, he had to adjust in a hurry to the smallness of the class. At the same time, he was deeply impressed by the students’ initiative.

Read more profiles of tenure-track faculty new at �ֲ���ý in 2013:

• Lydia Barnett, assistant professor of history
• Travis Gould, assistant professor of physics
• Brooke O’Harra, assistant professor of theater

“They did a fantastic job of linking back our discussion to the things the course had been emphasizing for the weeks,” he says.

Cavallero started as assistant professor this fall. We tend to associate “rhetoric” with writing and speaking, but schools like �ֲ���ý see it broadly, defining rhetoric as the study of how people use symbolic systems — not only verbal languages — to play out their roles in the world.

Movies and television have their own symbolic systems, of course. And as moving images have conquered communications, understanding those systems is essential to cultural citizenship. The converse is also true: from King Kong to Citizen Kane to Modern Family to a one-handed catch contest on YouTube, moving images afford a powerful lens for examining society and culture.

“I’m interested in the cultural place of the movies, and how they help us think about social identities that we attached to others or ourselves,” says Cavallero — identities such as ethnicity, gender or sexuality.

“A lot of what I’m doing is using cultural studies to create a context around film” and to illustrate how films reflect or affect time, place and people. For example, in his course on Bollywood, a particular interest of Cavallero’s, students look at how Bollywood and other filmmaking centers have emulated one another in hopes of reaching still larger audiences.

“At what point do those crossovers water everything down to the point that it’s all homogenized, and you lose some of that local flavor?” he says.

“I’m conflicted because I love some Bollywood movies that are very slick and very Hollywood. They have action scenes and superheroes, and you can have a good time watching them — but I also worry about that. Because sometimes, those films can look like Iron Man, and part of the fun of Bollywood is that it’s different from Hollywood.”

Pedagogy in the multicultural classroom is another focus for Cavallero, and film builds cross-cultural connections. “Students bring in their own views and political perspectives, and they can talk about a movie with classmates who have very different views from them.”

Immersion in moving imagery gives everyone common references. “Students come in ready to participate, ready to talk, excited,” says Cavallero, who’s teaching Bollywood and film theory this fall. “As the course progresses, they’ll learn new theoretical perspectives and the vocabulary of film studies, but even in the early weeks of a class they’re pretty confident in their knowledge of the subject and they tend to be willing to jump right in.

“I’ve always seen that as an opportunity because I learn so much from them.”

Cavallero earned a doctorate in communication and culture and in American studies at Indiana University. He has taught at the University of Arkansas; at Penn State, where he earned a master’s degree in media studies; and at Indiana. He earned a bachelor’s degree in government at Georgetown University.

Professor of Theater — and filmmaker — Paul Kuritz. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College.

A short film directed by �ֲ���ý Professor of Theater Paul Kuritz will premiere at the college at 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Amy’s Wish is Kuritz’s adaptation of James Caputo’s award-winning short play with that title. The film recounts the story of a young girl facing her father’s terminal illness and encountering a professional mourner at a local funeral parlor.

The screening is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact 207-786-6257 or pkuritz@bates.edu.

Amy’s Wish��has been selected to appear at the 2012 Midwest Christian-Inspirational Indie Film Festival, in Chicago Sept. 28-30; Kingdomwood Christian Film Festival, in Atlanta Oct. 5-7; and the Gideon’s Flame Christian Film Festival in Manila, the Philippines.

Performers in the film include Britt Davis, a member of the �ֲ���ý class of 2014 from Chicago; and Cheryl Reynolds of Portland, an actress familiar to local audiences.

Robert Little of Auburn, who graduated from �ֲ���ý in May, served as cinematographer on the production, while senior Cherelle Conner of Miami edited the film.

Location shooting was done at Lewiston’s historic Albert and Burpee Funeral Home.

Hosted by the �ֲ���ý College Museum of Art, the series continues on Fridays and Sundays throughout the fall. Admission is $5. For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The series is produced by the Global Film Initiative to promote cross-cultural understanding by showing little-known, skillfully made independent films to American audiences. The initiative believes that “a powerful, authentic narrative can foster trust and respect between disparate cultures and mitigate the social and psychological impact of cultural prejudice.”

My Time Will Come tells the story of Dr. Arturo Fernandez , a reclusive Quito coroner. Through the film, a series of interwoven tragedies leads the protagonist to reconcile his relationships with both the living and the dead.

Made in 2008, the film is in Spanish with English subtitles (90 mins.).

After working as a director of photography for television and documentary films, winning awards and acclaim from organizations such as UNICEF, Arregui produced his first short film, El Tropezon in 1999. His first full-length film, Offside, was screened at over 30 film festivals. My Time Will Come is his second feature film.

about My Time Will Come and the entire Global Lens series.

Kudos from Lesotho

I just read the Spring 2009 issue; it was a pleasure. I’m writing from the Kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa where I work as a Peace Corps education volunteer teaching secondary math and science. I also work with the African Library Project setting up school libraries and am involved in HIV/AIDS education. Lesotho has the world’s third-highest adult HIV prevalence, so all volunteers in country incorporate HIV education into whatever we do.

As a transfer to �ֲ���ý my sophomore year, I became quite close with this year’s graduating class. Unable to attend Commencement, I and my students sought a way to congratulate the grads. The students decided to make a poster and send photographs to our friends. This helped to meet the Peace Corps’ central goal of promoting amity between Americans and host country nationals. Take a look.

, Bela-Bela, Lesotho

Staying Home

Four years ago, I was a �ֲ���ý senior about to graduate. I had spent my college days as a happy resident, swimming in all the resources and opportunities that �ֲ���ý had to offer. �ֲ���ý helped me discover and define my own values, and Lewiston for a time was home. But on the day of my graduation, when faced with that inevitable question of “What now?” I decided to leave. I wasn’t alone in this decision. Lewiston had few professional opportunities for newly minted bachelors of arts.

Please Write!
We love letters. Letters may be edited for length (300 words or fewer preferred), style, grammar, clarity, and relevance to College issues and issues discussed in �ֲ���ý Magazine. E-mail your letter, or postal-mail it to �ֲ���ý Magazine, Office of Communications and Media Relations, 141 Nichols St., Lewiston ME 04240.

This letter is to commend my dear friends Craig Saddlemire ’05 and Ari Rosenberg ’06, who stayed. Not only did they stay in Lewiston but became involved with the Visible Community (“Tents Situation,” Spring 2005), a grassroots community organization comprising downtown Lewiston residents taking it upon themselves to chart a positive future for their neighborhood and to become collaborators in the process of downtown redevelopment.

Craig had an unusual interest while he was a student at �ֲ���ý: making movies. I, for one, did not know where that interest would take him. Since 2004 he has recorded and documented the history of the Visible Community. He has now created a documentary movie about Lewiston and its people, , that humanizes the often-stereotyped and makes visible the most invisible among us. I hope this movie will open eyes and hearts alike.

Over the years, many �ֲ���ý alumni have decided to stay in Lewiston. These �ֲ���ýies have taken what they learned at �ֲ���ý and are applying it to their adopted community, fulfilling a circle of mutual opportunity and responsibility shared by �ֲ���ý and the city.

Gregory Rosenthal ’05, Catskill, N.Y.

Going Away

Recently I faced the bittersweet reality of graduating from �ֲ���ý College. During the past four years, �ֲ���ý and the entire Lewiston-Auburn community became my home. As a lifelong resident of a small town in Aroostook County, I was somewhat nervous, four years ago, about moving down to such a big city. However, I was happy to find that my fellow Mainers here are characterized by the same qualities that I have always appreciated about people in the County. I want to thank the people of Lewiston-Auburn for being so kind and welcoming to me and my fellow classmates throughout our time at �ֲ���ý. While I have committed to teaching for two years in Boston through Teach for America, long-term I am looking to move back to this part of Maine. The lessons learned inside the classroom at �ֲ���ý are very valuable, but �ֲ���ý’ location here in Lewiston is one of the things that make the institution so special.

Paul Suitter ’09, Oakfield, Maine

Paul Suitter’s letter originally appeared in the Lewiston Sun Journal shortly after Commencement. — Editor

In Memoriam

Readers remember three �ֲ���ý people who have died. — Editor

As an alumna of the library audio room — I worked there all four years at �ֲ���ý — I was saddened to hear of the loss of Jan Lee, the College’s audio librarian from 1982 to 1994 (“[intlink id=”10325″ type=”post”]Turning Points[/intlink],” Spring 2009).��Always with a smile,��Jan taught me more than just how to catalogue music. She taught me to listen to music, to learn its history, and to share it with others as part of my job. Many days I would arrive at work to find Jan with headphones on, listening. She’d pull me over, plug in another set, and share what she was listening to, and why.

Melissa Storm ’93, Washington, D.C.

With a heavy heart and tremendous sadness, I read of the passing of Robert Paul Martin ’57 (“[intlink id=”10291″ type=”post”]Deaths[/intlink],” Spring 2009). As a native ’Header and Bobcat football player, “Spinner” impacted my life on multiple levels. My only regret is that I never shared this with him during his life.

My first encounter with Mr. Martin was in a sophomore-year American history class at Marblehead High School. He taught using the Socratic method, so rather than lecturing from behind a desk he questioned and challenged the class from our first day of high school. He encouraged dialogue, debate, and dissenting opinions while also branding meaningful dates in the formation of our country onto uncluttered brains of willing students. As a senior, I again partook of his offerings, this time in a post–World War II American history class. I remember writing a position paper on Sen. Joe McCarthy that was so controversial that all of my classmates attacked my thesis. Meanwhile, Mr. Martin orchestrated the debate with a smile on his face, supporting my outrageous musings.

At no point was I aware of Mr. Martin’s �ֲ���ý connection, even though he knew of my interest in the school as I had asked him to write college references for me. I was accepted to �ֲ���ý. Soon thereafter, Mr. Martin commented on my acceptance and alluded to his having attended the school. He said that he hoped I enjoyed competing on the gridiron against the hated rivals from Brunswick and Waterville but never mentioned his exploits while in Lewiston. Mr. Martin never even mentioned he played football!

Arriving on campus for practice my freshman year, I walked through the trophy room upstairs in Alumni Gym. I saw the jerseys of a few (very few) decorated Bobcat football players. Then I came upon Spinner’s jersey, in the glass case, retired. It was the first time Mr. Martin’s Bobcat greatness became known to me.

In his humble and understated way, Mr. Martin kept his football prowess a complete secret. If I juxtapose his approach against all the underachieving chest pumpers among today’s athletes, his legend grows even greater. I feel blessed to have known you, Mr. Martin.

Bob Lieberson ’85, Marblehead, Mass.

You’ve probably already received news of the death of Nelson Boies Doak ’70 (page 57 of this issue).�� As the long-time program director for WKTJ-FM 99.3 in Farmington, Maine, Nelson was my boss when I worked as a part-time radio announcer in high school. He gave me the station keys when I was 14 so I could run the control booth for my Sunday morning shift, 6 o’clock to noon. About a year later, I added the Saturday sign-on shift, which required waking at 4:15 a.m. to power up the station’s highly unreliable Korean War–surplus broadcast equipment by 5 o’clock. By the time I was a junior, I worked nearly every day during school break weeks and summers, filling in for anyone on vacation. With that job, Nelson gave me instant hallway cred at Mount Blue High School.

I consider Nelson to have been the best music teacher I ever had. Although he kind of looked like Jerry Garcia, he much preferred Grand Funk Railroad. At 14, I didn’t know what anyone in Grand Funk looked like, but I always pictured Nelson belting out “We’re an American Band.” He thought the artist formerly known as John Cougar was reprising (ripping off?) the early work of Neil Diamond. And he adored, for reasons unknown to me, The Archies. All the other grown-up full-time DJs gave him no end of grief for that. As a teen, I couldn’t bring myself to cue up an Archies track. Today, “Sugar Sugar” sounds sweeter.

Marc Glass ’88, Wilton, Maine