Between Two Worlds
2025-11-13 18:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Pozycki Hall Auditorium
The Institute for Global Understanding (IGU) and the Center for the Arts at Monmouth University invite you to the third Pearson’s World Cinema Series (PWCS) movie and discussion event of the fall semester on Thursday, November 13th, at 6:05 PM in Pozycki Hall Auditorium. The event is co-sponsored by the Global Understanding Convention 2025.
We will screen the movie Between Two Worlds (2021) directed by Emmanuel Carrere. The movie will be hosted by Dr. Manuel Chavez with Dr. Marina Vujnovic. Screening will be followed by a discussion and refreshments.

Leviathan
2025-10-23 18:00 - 21:30 | Bey Hall Auditorium
The Institute for Global Understanding (IGU) and the Center for the Arts at Monmouth University invite you to the second Pearson’s World Cinema Series (PWCS) movie and discussion event of the fall semester on Thursday, October 23rd, at 6:05 PM in the Young Auditorium, Bey Hall. We will screen the movie Leviathan (2014) directed by Andrei Zviagintsev. The movie will be hosted by Dr. Jason Adolf with Prof. Tom Pearson. Screening will be followed by a discussion and refreshments.

Evil Does Not Exist
2025-09-25 18:00 - 21:30 | Great Hall Auditorium
This is the Institute for Global Understanding (IGU) and the Center for the Arts at Monmouth University’s first Pearson’s World Cinema Series (PWCS) movie and discussion event of the fall semester on Thursday, September 25th, at 6:05PM in the Great Hall Auditorium. We will screen the movie Evil Does Not Exist (2023), directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, followed by a post-screening Q&A session hosted by Dean Dave Golland and with Prof. Chris DeRosa as discussant. A post-screening discussions and refreshments will follow.

Prima Facie
2024-09-19 19:30 - 21:30 | Pollak Theatre
written by Suzie Miller
directed by Justin Martin
Jodie Comer’s (Killing Eve) Olivier and Tony Award-winning performance in Suzie Miller’s gripping one-woman play returns to cinemas.   Tessa is a young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from working class origins to be at the top of her game; defending; cross examining and winning. An unexpected event forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge.   Prima Facie takes us to the heart of where emotion and experience collide with the rules of the game.   Justin Martin directs this solo tour de force, captured live in 2022 during a sold out run at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End.

Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2024
2024-09-13 00:00 - 2024-12-20 23:59 | Rotary Ice House Gallery
Mike Richison’s Election Collection: 2004-2020 showcases 20 years of design and video art inspired by the presidential election cycle. Richison began working with this topic in 2004 when he created a short video loop of George W. Bush drinking water during the debates. This evolved into performances and interactive video projects that break down language into musical and abstract elements.
The culmination of these explorations is Electo Electro 2024, an interactive installation that enables participants to produce techno-inspired beats using video clips of presidential candidates. This project combines iMacs, iPads, custom software, and the housing from decommissioned Diebold AccuVote TS voting booths. Users can remix videos from political rallies and debates in a structured sixteen beat loop. An iPad-based touchscreen design parodies the system employed by the AccuVote, a voting system that was difficult to audit and susceptible to hacking.
As a parody, the format of Richison’s installation resembles a polling station, while the branding and graphic elements of the project hearken back to vintage electronic devices. The AccuVote debuted in the early 2000s as the poster child of the Help America Vote Act. After its widespread adoption, a group of researchers discovered a long list of vulnerabilities that can lead to stolen votes, lost votes, or a failure of the computer itself. The project deals with expectation, failure, and vulnerability
On the opening day and throughout the run of the exhibit, Richison will perform and demonstrate this project. His goal is to “encourage users to examine media and become individuals who can control media, rather than be controlled by it.”
This event is being held in conjuction with ArtNOW’s Mike Richison, Electo Electro 2024 on October 4 at 10:15 AM.
About the artist, Mike Richison: Mike Richison is a multimedia artist and an Associate Professor at Monmouth University, where he teaches motion graphics. He employs a variety of approaches to artmaking, including sculpture, graphic design, and interactive video. His work utilizes found objects, such as turntables, voting booths, and scavenged video clips as well as the Max MSP Jitter programming environment. Richison has exhibited at Autonomous Cultural Centre Medika (Zagreb, Croatia); Figment NYC and Art in Odd Places (New York); and Peters Valley School of Craft and Morris Museum (New Jersey). His projects have received attention in outlets such as Leonardo, VICE, FACT Magazine, Hyperallergic, WABC-TV Channel 7 News New York, and The Washington Post. Before moving to New Jersey in 2007, he lived in the Detroit, MI, area for several years.

Paul and Linda McCartney's Ram
2024-07-02 19:30 - 21:30 | The Great Hall Auditorium/Virtual, 400 Cedar Ave, West Long Branch, NJ, 07720, United States
It’s just like book club but with albums! With new advances in technology, the way we consume music through our devices, apps and on demand streaming services like Pandora, Spotify and iTunes is making the idea of the “album” as an art form extinct. Get together with other music enthusiasts on Tuesday nights to discuss some of the greatest records of all-time! Listen to the album beforehand and then come prepared to discuss. This event will feature Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram.
This event is offered BOTH in person and via Zoom. Join us in person at the Great Hall Auditorium on the Campus of Monmouth University or join us via zoom. When you register you will be provided the ZOOM meeting link to join the conversation.
Free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Jacob Landau: The Frances Cycle
2024-04-01 00:00 - 2024-04-07 23:59 | Guggenheim Memorial Library, Room #101, 400 Cedar Ave, West Long Branch, NJ, 07764, United States
Monmouth University Galleries opens an art exhibition that features the important series of drawings: The Frances Cycle, created by the American artist, humanist, and teacher Jacob Landau.
Reception: Monday, April 1, 2024, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Born in Philadelphia in 1917, Landau launched his career as an illustrator, winning national prizes at age 16 and a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Art. He went on to have over sixty one-person shows, featuring a wide range of drawings and paintings. The recipient of numerous awards, including Guggenheim and National Arts Council grants, many of his works are featured in permanent collections, such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A master teacher, he retired as professor emeritus at New York’s Pratt Institute. In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by Monmouth University.
The exhibition features the important series of drawings, The Frances Cycle, in dedication to his wife that died from Alzheimer’s disease. In 1999, Landau finished a limited-edition book, The Frances Cycle: Some Motions of the Earth. He used his own art and the poetry of, former President of the Jacob Landau Institute, and writer/poet, David Herrstrom, to give voice to the words his wife spoke as she dealt with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. The completes series (14), and books, are all from Monmouth University’s extensive collection of Jacob Landau’s work, comprising over 300 prints, drawings, and paintings. The collection was gifted to Monmouth University in 2008 by the Jacob Landau Institute of Roosevelt, NJ.

The Immortals: The Wonder of The Museo Egizio
2024-03-25 19:30 - 21:30 | Pollak Theatre
This documentary is a journey among the most beautiful archaeological finds Egypt has left us.
Kha, architect and builder of tombs for the pharaohs, must undertake the journey to the Underworld. Telling us the story of his voyage is Jeremy Irons, in the guise of a narrator. His words take us inside the secret world of Egyptian mythology, religion and funerary culture, interweaving the story with the history of the oldest museum in the world, the Museo Egizio in Turin, founded in 1824 and will soon be celebrating its 200th anniversary. In fact, the Kha’s own Tomb is to be found in Turin along with the most complete and most valuable private collection of grave goods outside of Egypt.
A journey along the Nile , among the most beautiful archaeological finds Egypt has left us, the magnificent monuments of Giza, Luxor, Karnak, to the Valley of the Kings and the workers’ village of Deir el-Medina, the story told by Irons follows the tracks of Italian explorers and archaeologists – their itineraries also leading to the exhibition halls of the Cairo Museum, the Ägyptischen Museum in Berlin, the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris.
From Ramesses II in Turin, to the treasure of Tutankhamun in Cairo, the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin, the Red Scribe in the Louvre, and the Rosetta Stone in London.
Featuring: Jeremy Irons
Estimated runtime: 86 minutes

Youth Unstoppable
2024-03-06 19:30 - 22:00 | Pollak Theatre
Directed by Slater Jewell-Kemker
Canada, 2018
Youth Unstoppable: My Decade in the Youth Climate Movement (formerly An Inconvenient Youth) captures the vibrant untold story of the global youth climate movement. Decisions made today are shaping the world they will live in, and they are no longer willing to sit idly as the planet is degraded for the short term gain of the older generations. Director Slater Jewell-Kemker has been interviewing celebrities and politicians about the environment since the age of ten, now she is telling the stories of these remarkable young people on the front lines of climate change. The feature documentary also gives life to a thriving online community, already forming, that will continue as a youth focused environmental social network. This is the story of the youth of today fighting for their planet, their future.
There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Marina Vujnovic with special guest speaker Prof. Catherine Duckett.
For more information on climate change see: Climate Crisis Teach-In 2024 | School of Science | Monmouth University: https://www.monmouth.edu/school-of-science/climate-crisis-teach-in-2024/

Jeff Koons: A Private Portrait
2024-01-29 19:30 - 21:30 | Pollak Theatre
This is not just a documentary but an amazing journey inside the mind of the most controversial artist of our time.

Jeff Koons is widely regarded as one of the most influential, popular and disputed artists of the last 30 years. This film will show the hidden mechanisms lying behind the person, the artist and the Koons brand. It’s an intimate exploration of Jeff Koon’s consciousness aiming to discover what motivates him and shapes his incomparable vision. With exclusive access to the Koons family home in York, Pennsylvania, the documentary investigates Koons’ roots and everyday life, follows him to New York City to his vast studio where tens of painters, sculptors and graphic designers are based, and then on to Qatar and Europe, to the Greek island of Hydra during his 2021 five exhibitions tour.
Among the other works, the documentary shows Play Doh, Puppy, Balloon dog, Banality, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Tulips, Lobster, Pink Panther, Bracelet, Cracked Egg, New Hoover Convertible…
Estimated runtime: 80 minutes

Fighting Climate Change at Home: Homegrown National Park
2024-01-23 19:00
On Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, at 7 p.m. in Pollak Theater, best selling author Doug Tallamy, Ph.D., professor of Entomology at University of Delaware and author of Nature’s Best Hope and the Nature of Oaks will present on what you can do in your own yard or balcony to fight climate change, create climate resiliency, and create beauty in your own backyard. Fighting Climate Change at Home: Homegrown National Park will present listeners with a road map on how to fight climate change and create a more ecologically resilient landscape.
Today, there are more than 44 million acres of turf grass in the U.S., an area larger than New England. Turf grass is the worst plant choice for fighting climate change because it is the worst option for sequestering carbon. Our parks, preserves, and remaining wildlands—no matter how grand in scale—are too small to sequester the amount of carbon needed to impact climate change. Moreover, they are also too small and separated from one another to sustain the native trees, plants, insects, and animals on which our ecosystems depend. These systems must be resilient if we are to have climate resiliency. We now must store carbon outside of parks and preserves, largely on private property, where we live, work, shop, and farm. Thus the concept for Homegrown National Park: a national challenge to create diverse ecosystems in our yards, communities, and surrounding lands by reducing lawn, planting natives, and removing invasive plants, and, in so doing, fight the biodiversity crisis and climate change simultaneously.
The talk will be followed by Q&A and a book signing. The public is encouraged to bring their own copies of Tallamy books for signature. This will be the first presentation of the 2024 Climate Crisis Teach-in.

Wadjda
2023-12-06 19:30 - 22:00 | Pollak Theatre
Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour
Saudi Arabia, Germany, 2012
Young Wadjda dreams of owning a green bicycle. She wants to race a boy from the neighborhood, but the law prohibits girls from riding bikes. Just as she is losing hope, she hears about a cash prize for a Koran recitation competition at her school. Wadjda decides to earn the cash to fulfil her dream.
There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Claude Taylor with special guest speaker Prof. Saliba Sarsar.

BORROMINI AND BERNINI: THE CHALLENGE FOR PERFECTION
2023-11-13 19:30 - 21:30 | Pollak Theatre
A journey into the great beauty of Baroque Rome, when the city was the centre of western art and where every ambitious painter, sculptor and architect had to be.
This is the story of the most famous artistic rivalry of all time, the one between Borromini and Bernini, but also the story of Borromini’s rivalry with himself: a genius so absorbed by his art that he turns it into a demon that devours him from the inside forcing him to choose death to reach eternity.
Borromini deprived himself of everything to pursue a dream: to conquer Rome. It is the story of the architectural revolution of a solitary maestro who changed the appearance of Rome forever, by pushing himself to his limit, but also by battling conventions and prejudices, with the humility to learn from the past to invent the future, with the courage to pursue an idea despite knowing he would pay the price in the end.
Estimated runtime: 102 minutes

Titanic: The Musical
2023-11-08 19:30 - 22:30 | Pollak Theatre
In the final hours of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic, on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, collided with an iceberg and ‘the unsinkable ship’ slowly sank. It was one of the most tragic disasters of the 20th Century. Fifteen hundred seventeen men, women, and children lost their lives.
Based on real people aboard the most legendary ship in the world, Titanic: The Musical is ‘breathtaking’ (the Guardian) and ‘magnificent’ (the Telegraph), a stunning and stirring production focusing on the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of her passengers who each boarded with stories and personal ambitions of their own. All innocently unaware of the fate awaiting them, the Third-Class immigrants dream of a better life in America, the Second Class imagine they too can join the lifestyles of the rich and famous, whilst the millionaire Barons of the First Class anticipate legacies lasting forever.

With music and lyrics by Maury Yeston and a book by Peter Stone — the pair have collectively won an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, an Olivier Award and three Tony Awards. The original Broadway production of Titanic: The Musical won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book. This stunning production, captured live on stage for cinema screenings, celebrates the 10th anniversary of its London premiere, where it won sweeping critical acclaim.
Runtime: 145 minutes including one 10-minute intermission
Rating: Not rated, Treat as PG

We are the Best
2023-11-06 19:30 - 22:00 | Pollak Theatre
Directed by Lukas Moodysson
Sweden, 2014
We Are the Best! is a story of three young misfit girls growing up in the early ‘80s Stockholm. Pixieish, mohawk-sporting Klara and her best friend Bobo are 13-year-old rebels looking for a cause. Despite having no instruments—or discernible musical talent—the two put all their energy into forming an all-girl punk band, recruiting their shy, classical guitar-playing schoolmate Hedwig as a third wheel. With tender affection for its young characters, We Are the Best! paints a joyous and sharply observant portrait of the rebellious spirit of youth and growing up different.
There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Mihaela Moscaliuc with special guest speaker Prof. Joe Rapolla.

Spider Thieves
2023-10-05 19:30 - 22:00 | Pollak Theatre
Directed by Guillermo Helo
Chile, 2017
Inspired by actual events, this teenage thriller is a unique social commentary on dreams, class, and unfulfilled expectations in contemporary Chile.
Three teenage girls from a Santiago shanty town set in motion a plan to climb buildings and plunder expensive apartments. All they want is to have all the cool and trendy stuff they see advertised in TV commercials and department stores. Word spreads and soon enough they became the notorious “spider thieves.”
There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Professor Manuel Chavez with special guest speakers Prof. Priscilla & Gustavo Gac-Artigas

Special Advance Screening - Miranda’s Victim
2023-09-30 18:00 - 23:00
It’s 1963, when Trish, 18, walks home at night from her job at a Phoenix theater. Suddenly, a stranger brandishing a knife ties Trish up and forces her into the back seat of his 1953 Packard. He then takes her to a deserted road and brutally sexually assaults her. Determined to have her assailant jailed, Trish reports the sexual assault to the skeptical police. It’s only after Trish undergoes a polygraph test and an extremely humiliating physical exam, that the detectives discover other women have been similarly attacked. But no one could know that Trish’s commitment to finding justice would trigger a law that would transform a Nation.
6:00 pm – Opening Reception – Great Hall – Additional Ticket Required
7:45 pm – Introduction and Screening, Miranda’s Victim– Pollak Theatre
10:15pm – Panel Discussion with Cast Members, Director, Producer and Special Guests

Filmed at locations throughout Monmouth County, including on the Monmouth University campus.

Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land
2023-05-09 19:30 - 21:30 | Virtual
Join us for Tuesday Night Book Club! Hosted by Monmouth University’s Ken Womack, each month we’ll explore a different novel. All you have to do is Zoom in and join the discussion!
This month’s novel is Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land.
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, comes the instant New York Times bestseller that is a “wildly inventive, a humane and uplifting book for adults that’s infused with the magic of childhood reading experiences” (The New York Times Book Review).
Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.
When you register you will be provided the meeting link to join the conversation.

As We Forgive
2023-03-01 19:30 - 21:30 | Pollak Theatre
Join us for a World Cinema Series film screening/discussion illuminating the theme “Wartime Lives: Enduring and Transcending Violence and Occupation” by analyzing the message and impact of the film As We Forgive (2009).
Directed by Laura Waters Hinson and narrated by Mia Farrow comes the award-winning documentary of two Rwandan women who struggle with the face-to-face encounter with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. These women and men speak for a nation still wracked by the grief of a genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans. Overwhelmed by an enormous backlog of court cases, the government released 50,000 perpetrators back to the very communities they helped to destroy. Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution of reconciliation. Come experience through their eyes the journey from death to life through forgiveness.
(District of Columbia: Image Bearer Films, 2010), 54 minutes
The discussion of the film will be led by Claude Taylor, Director For Academic Transition And Inclusion.

From this Day Forward
2023-02-10 11:00 - 13:30 | Pollak Theatre
Please join us for a film screening/panel discussion of the film From This Day Forward with director Sharon Shattuck and her parents Trisha and Marcia Shuttuck.
With her own wedding just around the corner, filmmaker Sharon Shattuck returns home to examine the mystery at the heart of her upbringing: How her transgender father Trisha and her straight-identified mother Marcia stayed together against all odds. From This Day Forward is a moving portrayal of an American family coping with the most intimate of transformations. As the film evolves into a conversation about love and acceptance in a modern American family, it raises questions relevant to all of us. As individuals how do we adapt to sustain long-term love and relationships? Where do sexuality and gender intersect? And how do families stay together, when external forces are pulling them apart?

This event is being held in conjunction with the juried gallery exhibition Aging and the Lived Experiences of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming (T/GNC) Older Adults: Narratives through Art on view in the Pollak Gallery January 23 – March 11. Find more information about the exhibit here.
This event is sponsored by: Monmouth University’s LGBT+ Older Adult Project, The Center for the Arts, and The Intercultural Center.
