For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey, 901/678-2843

The Student Activities Council at the University of Memphis will showcase music and drama during its Independent Film Festival Oct. 28-30.  The movies will be shown at 7 p.m. nightly in the Psychology Building Auditorium.  Admission is free and open to the public.

The annual festival features independent films from all over the world.  This year’s schedule includes Across the Universe, War Dance, and The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo.

Oct. 28 - Across the Universe: Set against the anti-war protests, rock ’n’ roll revolution, and mind-expanding psychedelia of the 1960s, Julie Taymor’s hallucinogenic musical follows the arduous journey of star-crossed lovers Jude and Lucy as they are swept up in the raging waters of the volatile counterculture movement.

Oct. 29 - War Dance: Set in northern Uganda, a country ravaged by more than two decades of civil war, War Dance tells the story of Dominic, Rose, and Nancy, three children whose families have been torn apart and homes destroyed, and who currently live in a displaced persons camp in Patongo. When they are invited to compete in an annual music and dance festival, their historic journey to their nation’s capital is also an opportunity to regain a part of their childhood and to taste victory for the first time in their lives.

Oct. 30 – The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo: Today in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, rape is taking place on a scale that is almost unimaginable. In the last ten years, hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped, but their suffering goes unacknowledged. Instead, they are invisible, shamed, and mute. This is the story of one filmmaker's crusade to break the silence surrounding this shocking reality, armed with a firsthand connection with the women and men she meets.

For more information, contact Kyndra Outlaw, cultural arts chair for the Student Activities Council, at 901-678-8679 or koutlaw@memphis.edu