The School for New Learning at DePaul University will present a film festival that explores

the personal, social and political dimensions of connections and transformations. Four films will

be presented between Feb. 25 and May 19. All films will bescreened at 7 p.m. in the Schmitt

Academic Center, 2320 N. Kenmore Ave., Room 254. Admission is free.

     There will be group discussions following each screening. Films include:

· Feb. 25-"Nightjohn," a moving story of a plantation slave who risks his life by teaching a fellow slave to read. This film, by celebrated African American director Charles Burnett, uses human connection and imaginative transformation as a means of personal and social empowerment. The National Society of Film Critics awarded "Nightjohn" a special citation in 1997.

· March 24-"Murder and Murder," the most recent work by feminist filmmaker Yvonne Rainer. This film examines the sexual awakening of a middle-aged woman who realizes that she is in love with another woman, and the interpersonal complications that arise when she discovers she has breast cancer.

· April 28-"Ali: Fear Eats the Soul," a 1974 film by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film tells the story of a middle-aged German widow and a much younger, Moroccan immigrant with whom she forms an intimate bond. Based upon Douglas Sirk's film, "All that Heaven Allows," this uncharacteristically hopeful Fassbinder film attests to the transformative properties of human resilience and devotion.

· May 19-"L'Argent," a 1983 film by noted French director Robert Bresson. Focusing on the themes of materialism and economic hardships, Bresson's study of the consequences resulting from one man's counterfeiting activities develops into a powerful examination of morality, responsibility and the struggle for spiritual transformation and transcendence.