The Lifetime Learning Center presents Explorations: The International Film Series!

Craven Community College - Orringer Auditorium
Two screenings: Fridays at 2:30 & 7:30 p.m.
Admission is free - Your donations support the series

Due to the variety of languages and accents represented, as well as accommodation for the hearing impaired, all films are shown with English subtitles.

Asian male and female laughing together

Past Lives

Friday, November 1, 2024
2023 - South Korea - Korean
Drama/Romance - PG-13
105 minutes
View movie trailer

Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, get separated when her family emigrates from South Korea. Two decades later, they reunite in New York City for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love and life choices.

In this Academy Award-nominated film, the Korean concept of “inyeon” is used to lead viewers to believe that Nora and Hae-sung are destined to be together – if not in this lifetime, then in the future. All may hope for them to have a happily-ever-after ending, but will they?

Two male actors and two female actresses dressed in 18th century mid-Western attire with stern facial expressions

The Promised Land

Friday, January 3, 2025
2023 - Denmark/Sweden - Danish/Swedish
Drama/History - R
127 minutes
View movie trailer

In 18th-century Denmark, impoverished war hero Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land on which seemingly nothing can grow. This beautiful but forbidding area is under the rule of Frederik De Schinkel, a merciless nobleman who realizes the threat Kahlen represents to his power.

As a new community starts to settle in, De Schinkel swears vengeance, leading to an intense confrontation between the two men. Mads Mikkelsen plays Kahlen with granite-faced strength.

Van Gogh painting of tree, cloudy sky, and yellow grass for Poets & Lovers movie

BONUS EVENT: Exhibition on Screen
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers

Friday, January 17, 2025
Art - Documentary Film
90 minutes
View movie trailer

Two-hundred years after its opening and a century after acquiring its first Van Gogh, the National Gallery hosted the UK’s biggest-ever Van Gogh exhibition. Van Gogh is not only one of the most beloved artists of all time, but perhaps the most misunderstood. This film is a chance to reexamine and better understand this iconic artist. Focusing on his unique creative process, Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers explores the artist’s years in the south of France, where he revolutionized his style, and became consumed with a passion for the landscape.

Poets and lovers filled his imagination; everything he did in the south of France served this new obsession. In part, this is what caused his notorious breakdown, but it didn’t hold back his creativity as he created masterpiece after masterpiece. Explore one of art history’s most pivotal periods in this once-in-a-century show. Made in close collaboration with the National Gallery.

Two male friends in beanies stand at base of snowy Alps

The Eight Mountains

Friday, February 7, 2025
2022 - Italy - Italian/English/Nepali
Drama - NR
147 minutes
View movie trailer

Based on the best-selling novel by Paolo Cognetti, this film spans almost 40 years, showing a lifelong friendship between two seemingly very different people: Men who became fast friends as children and remain friends, even though life, time, and circumstances often drive them apart.

This epic journey of friendship and self-discovery is set in the breathtaking Italian Alps and follows a profound and complex relationship between Pietro and Bruno.

Audience of fancily dressed opera-goers are seated at a performance, with a man sleeping on a woman's shoulder

Falling for Figaro

Friday, March 7, 2025
2020 - UK/Scotland - English
Comedy/Romance - PG-13
104 minutes
View movie trailer

Millie, a very successful fund manager, realizes one day that her lifelong dream is to become an opera singer. Quitting her lucrative job and moving away from her long-term boyfriend, she travels to the Scottish Highlands, where she hopes to become an opera singer following intense (and hysterical) vocal training from former opera diva Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop. She has fierce competition from other opera singers including Max, Meghan’s other talented student.

Old man with bushy eyebrows, mustache, and beard wears a newsboy cap and a serious facial expression

And Then Came the Nightjars

Friday, April 4, 2025
2020 - UK - English
Drama - NR
81 minutes
View movie trailer

On his run-down south Devon farm, recently widowed Michael only has his cherished herd of cows to call family - so when foot-and-mouth disease creeps slowly through the valley, he pulls up the drawbridge and hopes to wait it out. Meanwhile, life is hardly easy for local vet Jeff, who’s plunged from being every farmers’ best friend to cattle executioner and village persona non grata. So the question is, can they help each other survive the storm and salvage new lives as everything they once cherished scatters in the wind?

Film Selection Committee

Each year, members of the LLC International Film Selection Committee watch over 25 movies. They take notes, share their impressions, and rate each of the films. They bring great ideas to the process and create one of the most creative and diverse film series in the region. We wish to recognize and thank our very hard-working film selection committee:

Penny Belanger
Cindy Burrows
Sherry Clark
Norman Durocher
Mary Jo Fox
Jim Gruenebaum
Terri Jones
Lucy Laurens
Judi Lloyd
Fred Ohsol
Mary Anne Ohsol
Betty Orsega
George Orsega

Contact Information

Lifetime Learning Center
Brock Administration Building
New Bern Campus
252-633-2618

Have questions?

We’re here to help.

Contact Us

Required fields are marked with an asterisk '*'.