NOVA Libraries Feature Film Friday: Daisies
NOVA Libraries is excited to announce Feature Film Friday: a series highlighting films that are available to the campus community through our Video Streaming Collections. Each Friday, we will feature a different film being used by faculty to support college programming and coursework. All of the content in our Video Streaming Collections is available for free to anyone in the NOVA community and can be accessed from anywhere. To learn more about these collections and how you can include streaming video in your courses, check out this Streaming Video Guide.
This week, we are highlighting Professor Christopher Stallings (WO) and his use of the 1966 film Daisies in ART-150: History of Film and Animation. While the majority of content in ART-150 focuses on more well-known animated characters and recent cartoon and animated shows, Professor Stallings thinks that it is essential to contextualize these more notable works by looking at global events in the live-action film sphere. One way that he does this is by covering the 1960s Czech New Wave film movement, focusing on experimental techniques in Eastern and Central European movies of this time period.
In ART-150, Professor Stallings likes to teach Věra Chytilová’s Daisies, which represents Soviet oppression of Czechoslovakia using a unique style. This film is particularly notable because Chytilová, the film’s director, was a woman filmmaker living under Communist rule, which was very uncommon at the time. This film is also relevant for cinema students because of its connection to NOVA’s Film in the Czech Republic Study Abroad Program, a four-week program in which students work alongside film industry professionals in the Czech Republic. Professor Stallings has found that students tend to either love or hate Daisies, but regardless of their personal take on the film, students walk away with a greater appreciation for cinema from this region and a better understanding of global films as a whole.
This week’s film is available for streaming through Kanopy, a platform that NOVA Libraries uses to purchase individual titles for classroom use. Although these films are primarily used for coursework, they can also be watched outside of class for fun, which we hope you’ll do with our featured films each week! For more information, contact Melanie Medina or Molly Anderson. If you’re already using a film from our Video Streaming Collection in your course and want to be featured on a future Friday, please fill out this survey. Otherwise, keep an eye on the Daily Flyer to see what we spotlight next!
Watch Daisies on Kanopy until January 2025.
Submitted by:
Melanie Medina, AN-Librarian, MMedina@nvcc.edu