Thursday, May 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Beyond the Multiplex

Anime Film Festival

Japanese animation for teen and adult audiences (not suitable for children). Whitney Library, 5175 E. Tropicana Ave., 507-4010, free. Fri., May 23 11 a.m.; repeated at West Charleston Library, 6301 W. Charleston Blvd., 507-3940, free. Sun., May 25 2 p.m.

Starlight Movie Series

Family flicks al fresco in Duck Creek Park (S. Maryland Pkwy. at Pebble Rd.), free. Program details: 455-8278. Fri., May 23 8:30 p.m.

Asian Cinefest Independent Film Festival

Asian Cinevision's 25th anniversary tour ends with another program of short films: Miwon: Awakened Warrior (22 min.), Susan Han; After (8 min.), Ambika Samarthya; A Question of Virtue (9 min.), Buboo Kakati; The Good Son (9 min.), Michael Sandoval; Driving Lessons (24 min.), Susan Chui; Zara Mirage (12 min.), Vashti Anderson; Carefully Taught (4 min.), Valerie Soe; Thursday Night Babysitting (15 min.), Michael E. Choi. See www.lvccld.org for plot synopses. Whitney Library, 5175 E. Tropicana Ave., 507-4010, free. Sat. May 24 6 p.m.

Dancers of the Tropics

The City of Las Vegas' Department of Leisure Services presents a documentary focusing on female dancers of the 1940s and '50s who popularized the dances of Latin America and the Caribbean in ballrooms, on stage and film. West Las Vegas Arts Center, 947 W. Lake Mead Blvd., 229-4800, free. Sat., May 24 3 p.m.

Contemporary Cuba series

NOTBAD (Nevadans Organized To Better Address Diversity) presents Vampires in Havana [Vampiros en La Habana] (NR, 89 min.) Juan Padrón's 1985 animated gangster/horror spoof, with Prof. von Dracula quitting Transylvania for Cuba, where he creates a potion that allows vampires to survive in sunlight. [Spanish dialogue, English subtitles] Tue., May 27 4 p.m.; Life is to Whistle [La vida es silbar] (NR, 106 min.) Fernando Pérez's poignant 1998 allegory satirizing four decades of Cuban revolutionary repression, focuses on three characters in present-day Havana: A ballerina who regrets her vow of chastity, a woman who faints when she hears a certain word, and a musician doping with abandonment by his mom (tellingly named Cuba). [Spanish dialogue, English subtitles] Tue., May 27 7 p.m.

Voices of Sarafina!

(NR, 85 min.) Nigel Noble's 1988 documentary profiles the young South African actors who, led by writer-director Mbongeni Ngema, created the Broadway hit Sarafina, about black schoolchildren's involvement in the 1976 Soweto uprising. Makes You Wanna Holler series, West Las Vegas Library, 951 W. Lake Mead Blvd., 507-3980, free. Tue., May 27 6 p.m.

Roving Eye documentary series

Winchester Center presents Trinity and Beyond (NR, 92 min.) Peter Kuran's gripping 1995 history of atomic weapons, chronicling nearly every U.S. atmospheric test, mostly in Nevada; and Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (NR, 47 min.) Mark Lewis' hilarious and horrifying film about a disastrous Australian attempt to control sugar cane grub by importing voracious Hawaiian toads. Winchester Theater, 3130 S. McLeod Drive, 455-7340, $3. Wed., May 28 7 p.m.