Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Atheist Film Festival

I'll be appearing at this year's Atheist Film Festival at the Roxy in San Francisco, California, to give a Q&A for the audience after the showing of the film Agora. The festival starts on Sunday, August 21 (2011) at 10am. There will be two screens with different things running concurrently. For more details (including directions, tickets, etc.) see the SF Atheist Film Festival website.

If you want to catch the showing of Agora and my Q&A afterward, you'll have to get there early. Sadly, it's the first up and starts at 10am, so Sunday insleepers might miss out. And it's running opposite Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God, which is also awesome, so sadly we can't watch both! As to Agora, which is a moving piece of quality historical fiction about the pagan philosopher Hypatia (and her murder by fanatical Christians), if you want to bone up before the event, you can check out my past blogs on the film, especially since I'll certainly be referring the audience to them anyway. Here they are, linked in reverse chrono: [1], [2], [3].

Other films that will be shown include The Nature of Existence in which I have an inconse-quential split-second appearance (I've blogged this movie several times before, here linked in order of worth bothering to read: [1], [2], [3], [4]). And there's lots more, from feature films to documentaries to runs of funny and interesting shorts. And in several cases the directors are on hand to chat after the show (including Roger Nygard for The Nature of Existence). Check out the schedule for more.

Sadly I want to watch everything but I can't be in two theaters at once! You'll surely find something between them worth watching, so I say buy a complete day pass and have at it.

Posted by Richard Carrier at 12:40 PM
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2 comments:

Richard Carrier said...

On Facebook someone mentioned they thought there were other inaccuracies in the film Agora than those I've discussed in my blogs. That's possible. I mentioned minor errors I didn't elaborate on, and there could be major ones I missed because I was looking for specific things.

So I'll post here what I posted there, a request for everyone's list of "mistakes" they think they caught in the film. Follow this schema:

There are two elements in the film: things that track the record, and things they added that conform to a "could have been" style of fiction. In the second category, inaccuracies can only be of anachronism (I saw a few of those but nothing major). In the first category, inaccuracies can be of two kinds, those that contradict one source but follow another (or that find a plausible middle between to two contradictory sources) and those that contradict all sources (that speak to the point). The former are not inaccuracies, but interpretations. As to the latter, there were a few of those, but again nothing major, unless you caught something I missed, which as I just said is possible since I was looking for specific things.

I'll take anachronisms as well as inaccuracies.

August 04, 2011 11:38 AM
Richard Carrier said...

P.S. It was just announced that there is a special benefit the night before the film festival, where you can meet and chat with some of the film's directors (and me). It has a cover charge (which goes to support the atheist film festival) but if you are still keen click here for more.

August 04, 2011 11:44 AM

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