Ithaca College

The premiere of the critically acclaimed political thriller Catch a Fire (Philip Noyce, Australia) will unspool on Friday, October 27, at 7:00 p.m. at Cinemapolis Theater downtown as the next Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF)/7th Art Forum. A discussion with media scholars Anthony Reed and Todd Schack will follow the screening.

Catch a Fire is a gripping narrative film about an apolitical South African refinery worker who, unjustly accused of subversive activity against the apartheid regime, is radicalized by his searing experience of secret police cruelty. The film is based on the life of activist Patrick Chamusso (played by Derek Luke). Tim Robbins plays the South African secret police czar. Director Philip Noyce previous films included Rabbit Proof Fence and The Quiet American.

Anthony Reed is a Ph.D student in the English department at Cornell University. He is primarily interested in the intersection of aesthetics and politics in twentieth century art, especially literature and film. Todd Schack teaches in the Department of Television and Radio in the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. His research areas include cultural representations of the war on drugs, the war on terror, and alternative/oppositional media and literatures.