The Music Department hosts the Women's High School Choir Festival each year at Saint Mary's College.

Activities will take place in O'Laughlin and the Little Theatre.

For more information, please visit the Music Dept. at:

http://www.saintmarys.edu/~music/

All campus activities may be viewed at:

http://spev.saintmarys.edu/VirtualEMSCampus/ 

The Division for Mission will sponsor a college wide potluck for faculty and staff in Le Mans Hall from 11:30-1:00.

Please bring canned foods to contribute to the local Saint Vincent De Paul  Society.

The Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership presents Study Abroad Pre-Departure Orientation.

Haggar Parlor - 6 pm

The pre-departure orientation is required for all students who will study abroad in Spring 2009. Two sessions are available on November 20 and November 24 and students may attend either one. The orientation will cover important topics, such as, preparation for the trip, health and safety, emergency contact, intercultural development, etc.

For more information on the Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership, please visit http://centerforwomeninleadership.org/

The "Professor's Choice" Film Series presents "El Espiritu de la Colmena" (Victor Erice, 1973).

Introduced by Jennifer Zachman (Modern Languages, Spanish).

College Student Center, Vander Vennet Theatre - 7 pm

Widely regarded as a masterpiece of Spanish cinema, this allegorical tale is set in a remote village in the 1940s. The life in the village is calm and uneventful -- an allegory of Spanish life after General Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. While their father (Fernando FernaTeresa Gin Gomez) studies bees in his beehive and their mother (Theresa Gimpera) writes letters to a non-existent correspondent, two young girls, Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Telleria, go to see James Whale’s Frankenstein at a local cinema. Though they can hardly understand the concept, both girls are deeply impressed with the moment when a little girl gives a flower to the monster. Isabel, the older sister, tells Ana that the monster actually exists as a spirit that you can't see unless you know how to approach him. Ana starts wandering around the countryside in search of the kind creature. Instead, she meets an army deserter, who is hiding in a barn. The film received critical accolades for its subtle and masterful use of cinematic language and the expressive performance of the young Ana Torrent. ~ Yuri GermanIt is generally accepted that a political meaning has to be decoded whenever looking at this movie (it was filmed in the last years of Franco's dictatorship in Spain, and the story takes place in 1940, a year after the Spanish Civil War ended). But I suggest that one should firstly pay attention to the closest level of meaning: that is, just looking at the plain story narrated, metaphors aside. As 30 years after it was filmed so many people all over the world finds the movie fascinating it must be because of its emotive story about childhood universe, narrated in a poetically quiet tone.The life of Ana, a five year-old girl living in a little village of Castille, is subverted after watching James Whale's "Frankenstein" in a mobile cinema (the scene in itself is a cherished sample on the sociology of movie-going). The non appropriate for children movie raises questions in Ana, who is fascinated by the mystery of the Monster -or Spirit- as her older sister tells her that he lives close to their large house. For Ana, the heart of this mystery is the discovery of death amidst the lies of her sister and the oppressing family environment, dominated by the effects of war. Ana will be devoted to looking for the Spirit-Monster and when she finds a wounded fugitive soldier (a superb scene without words) she will feed and clothe him as she takes him for the Spirit; later on she will be shocked by the discovery of death. The mixture of reality and fantasy in a child's mind when dealing with the mysteries of life and death in the context of an alienated family and the devastated landscape of the postwar period in Spain, is the main story narrated from Ana's point of view.There are other stories which can be interpreted in several ways: the enigmatic life of the father, devoted to writing about social organization of bees; the mother writing to a distant beloved one; the sister, who deceives Ana with stories and playing death. These other plots convey other meanings to the movie; in a second level of meaning it is possible to interpret the beehive and the large house as a metaphor for the isolated Spain after the war, the monster as the incarnation of totalitarianism (made up of death bodies and the mind of a criminal), the two sisters as the metaphor of the two bands that fought in the fratricide Spanish War, and even the encounter of Ana with the fugitive soldier could be interpreted as the impossibility for this two bands of the country for becoming reconciled. There was a political intention for the movie, but is the plain story of the discoveries in childhood what gives the film a lasting preeminence. It also stands out for the great cinematography and the acting of children. ~ rudronriver.