Carlow University to Take Part in Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival

Pittsburgh, Pa. – Carlow University will collaborate with the 2014 Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival: Faces of Work by screening The Cleaner (El Limpiador), on Monday, March 24, 2014, at 4 p.m. in Kresge Theatre, located on the fifth floor of Grace Library on the Carlow campus.  This screening is free and open to the public.

The director of the film, Adrián Saba, will attend and be available for a question and answer session following the film.

The Cleaner is Peru’s 2014 Oscar Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Award.   The film takes the viewer into a world of urban desolation. Lima, Peru, serves as the location for a fatal epidemic, in which human corpse disposal constitutes the protagonist’s daily work life.

The Film Festival says “Saba creates a bleak, yet visually striking, atmosphere, bringing cinematographic beauty to dark subject matter. Long, static takes frame a variety of spaces from claustrophobic interiors to panoramic shots of Peruvian landscape. Along with an ambient musical score, stunning visual references to astronomy further recall science fiction, blurring the line between a habitable Earth and a faraway planet. While such an apocalypse is fictitious, The Cleaner transforms the metropolitan setting of contemporary Lima into a deserted and haunting backdrop. This seemingly doomed tale of work, however, is not one without hope.”

The Cleaner has received numerous awards including the New Voices/New Visions Grand jury Prize at the 2013 Palm Springs International Film Festival, and awards in 2012 at the Chicago International Film Festival, the Transilvania International Film Festival, the San Sebastian International Film Festival, and the Havana Film Festival.

The Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival is an annual celebration of international film and its potential to shine a light on the human faces involved in shaping our contemporary social landscape.  Audiences are encouraged to explore the numerous complex themes of these films beyond the screenings themselves by participating in audience Q&A sessions with directors, artists, academics, and professionals; by engaging with interactive performances by student artists; and by sampling exotic foods and international cuisine from local eateries.

Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carlow University was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1929. Offering both undergraduate and graduate programs, Carlow University is a comprehensive master’s institution dedicated to learner-centered education at the collegiate levels and at the elementary school level in the Campus School of Carlow University.