La Grande Bouffe Final Offering in A&M International's Feasting on Light: 2001 Fall Film Festival

The final offering of Texas A&M International University's Fall Film Festival Series: "Feasting on Light" is La Grande Bouffe. The film will be shown Wednesday, December 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Bullock Hall 101 and is free and open to the public.

The festival, which examines food and our relationship to it, will end extravagantly with the final feature, the title of which appropriately translates to "the blow-out." An over-the-top, graphic and visually aggressive film, it is considered director Marco Ferreri's masterpiece. He was a counterculture figure of the late 1960s and his film portrays consumption in a darkly funny, yet savagely grotesque manner.

La Grande Bouffe won the 1973 Cannes Film Festival Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique (FIPRESCI) award. FIPRESCI is an international group of film critics. This film is not for the faint of stomach, but the fine acting of all-star European cast raises this movie above gross-out dark comedy.

The film is rated NC-17 for some explicit sexuality. It will be shown in French with English subtitles.

After the show, there will be 15 to 30 minutes of commentary and questions and answers, led by Series creators Dr. Sean M. Chadwell and Dr. William J. Nichols II, both assistant professors in the College of Arts and Humanities.

For more information, contact either Drs. Chadwell or Nichols by phone, at 326.2471, 326.2610, visit offices in the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library, room 418C, room 421B or visit the festival's website: http://www.tamiu.edu/~wnichols/food.htm.

University office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at pais@tamiu.edu