"Marguerite" is shown Oct. 10 and 11.
Virginia Highlands Community College continues the Fall 2016 Arts Array Film Series in October. Show times are every Monday and Tuesday evening at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Abingdon Cinemall, Abingdon, Va. Admission is free for all students and staff members of Virginia Highlands Community College, Emory & Henry College, King University and Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, including participants in the College of Older Adults who purchase an Arts Array pass. Community admission is $7.75.
"Ex Machina" is on screen Oct. 3 and 4. The reclusive CEO of a hi-tech company (Oscar Isaac) recruits a brilliant young computer programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) to evaluate his latest invention - a highly advanced android named Ava (Alicia Vikander), which is supplied with the most advanced Artificial Intelligence ever conceived. Despite their intelligence and formidable reputations, the two men fail to realize just how easily a machine that's as beautiful as it is brilliant can manipulate them. Directed by Alex Garland.
"Marguerite" is shown Oct. 10 and 11. Marguerite is a wealthy baroness in 1920s Paris who attempts to find fame as a singer, despite a truly appalling lack of talent. Meanwhile, her husband (played by Andre Marcon) and loyal butler (Denis Mpunga) work to keep her in the dark about her terrible reviews, gently encouraging her to keep pursuing her dream. Real-life performer Florence Foster Jenkins inspired "Marguerite." Directed by Xavier Giannoli.
"Chi-Raq" is on screen Oct. 17 and 18. In Spike Lee's modern-day adaptation of Aristophanes' play "Lysistrata," a gang leader's girlfriend (Teyonah Parris) is called to action after a child is killed by a stray bullet. She convinces a group of women to help put an end to the violence in Chicago's South Side by taking a vow of abstinence, which will only end when their men decide to bring peace to the city. Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson and Angela Bassett co-star.
"Embrace of the Serpent" is shown Oct. 24 and 25. Filmed in stunning black-and-white photography, the film centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. Inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant. Directed by Ciro Guerra.
"The Witch" is on screen Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. Exiled from their village, a devout Puritan family in 1630s New England struggle to survive in their new home situated at the edge of a mysterious forest. The sinister, witching forces in the wilderness emerge, and the clan falls victim to paranoia and fear as they begin to turn on one another. With the vast majority of the dialogue culled from primary sources from the time period, Robert Eggers' debut feature is a terrifying glimpse into a family's descent into madness.
