International films are the focus of Belmont World Film, which celebrates its 15th year March 21-May 15 with screenings on Mondays at 7:30 p.m. at either Belmont’s Studio Cinema or the West Newton Cinema. Most screenings will be followed by guest speakers. The series features many New England premieres, such as the opening night selection, “Parisienne,’’ from Lebanese-French director Danielle Arbid. Arbid directed “Beirut Hotel,’’ shown at the festival in 2012. Set during the 1990s, the film follows 19-year-old Lina, who moves in with her aunt and uncle to attend a university in Paris. Alone and naive, she looks for the freedom she has never found in her native Lebanon.
Other highlights include “The Treasure’’ (March 28), from director Corneliu Porumboiu (“Police, Adjective’’). Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard competition last year, it explores Romania’s last 200 years through the story of two men seeking a fortune that is reportedly buried on the grounds of a country home once occupied by the Soviets. Yared Zeleke’s “Lamb’’ (April 4 ), the first Ethiopian film to be in competition at Cannes, is about a boy whose father sends him to live with relatives on a farm while he finds work in Addis Abbaba after his wife dies. In “Mountain’’ (April 11), the debut feature from Israeli filmmaker Yaelle Kayam, a devout housewife who lives with her family in an isolated home located inside the cemetery on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, looks for meaning among the ancient tombs.
As part of its spotlight on Brazil, host of the 2016 Summer Olympics, the series concludes with Gabrielle Mascaro’s “Neon Bull’’ (May 9), about the men of the vaquejadas, a traditional sport similar to rodeo from the rural northeast of Brazil; and “Casa Grande’’ (May 15), Fellipe Barbosa’s study of race and class privilege among Rio de Janeiro’s decadent elite. It follows a teenager’s struggle to escape his overprotective parents as they secretly spiral into bankruptcy.
Go to www.belmontworldfilm.org.
Music and mayhem
The Coolidge Corner Theatre on March 21 at 7 p.m. will showcase three classic silent short comedies. This Sounds of Silents program includes live musical accompaniment from Donald Sosin, Joanna Seaton, and their five-member ensemble. The films are “The Pawnshop’’ (1916) and “Easy Street’’ (1917), both directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin; and “Coney Island’’ (1917), directed by Roscoe “Fatty’’ Arbuckle, who stars alongside Buster Keaton.
Go to www.coolidge.org.
Loren King can be reached at loren.king@comcast.net.
