Special Screening of ‘The Way We Get By’ at TAMIU Nov. 9

A special screening of the South by South West Special Jury Award-winning film “The Way We Get By” will be offered at Texas A&M International University’s Student Center theatre, room 236 on Monday, Nov. 9 from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Admission is free of charge and all attending will be able to participate in a special fundraiser for the Operation Homefront Project championed by the TAMIU Dustdevil Athletics Program. After the film, a discussion about the importance of community service will follow.

“The Way We Get By” is a profoundly moving film about life and how to live it. It seems a simple story about troop greeters - a group of senior citizens who gather daily at a small airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq, but soon becomes an unsettling accounting of aging, loneliness, war and mortality.

The film was written by director Aron Gaudet and draws from the life experiences of his mother, Joan Gaudet, a troop greeter featured in the film. Gaudet was impressed by the passion that transformed his mother’s life and those of her friends, who combined have greeted 800,000-plus troops returning home.

It has been has been honored with numerous awards including the Golden Rock award for Best Documentary at the 3rd Little Rock Film Festival and the Audience Award at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina. At the Cleveland Film Festival, it beat out 28 films to win the Greg Gund Memorial Film Competition, which recognizes films for their social conscience. It is scheduled to air on PBS’ acclaimed P.O.V. program later this year.

Critics across the nation have praised the film. “It's the deep well of compassion behind it that helps make 'The Way We Get By' such a stirring experience.” Writes Chris Barsanti of The Hollywood Reporter. Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said the film was “Profoundly humane,” while Mike Riggs of the Washington City Paper noted, “This one will leave you breathless.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Clint O’Connor observes, “Grade: A...There are moments in "The Way We Get By" that cut right to your heart.”

The Way We Get By is a co-production of The Way We Get By Productions, Inc., the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and American Documentary, Inc. | POV, made in association with WGBH and MPBN with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

For more information, please contact TAMIU Athletics associate director Dan Lathey at 326.2892 or e-mail dlathey@tamiu.edu.

To have an event reminder sent by e-mail or text or downloaded to your calendar, visit the University’s online calendar, @TAMIU, located at tamiu.edu/calendar

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