Film School's Torchlight Program to Present Sneak Peak of 'Bright Star'

Jane Campion Film about John Keats’ Secret Love Affair to Show at Student Life Center

After sold-out screenings earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film “Bright Star” will show at The Florida State University just before it opens in theaters around the country. The free sneak preview comes courtesy of the Film School’s Torchlight Program and its director, Paul Cohen.

The “Bright Star” sneak preview will take place:

THURSDAY, SEPT. 24
7 P.M.
ASKEW STUDENT LIFE CENTER
942 LEARNING WAY
THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
TALLAHASSEE, FLA.

Admission is free. Seating is first come, first served.

Cohen, who attended the Toronto festival with three Florida State students, worked with Apparition, the film’s distribution company, to arrange the special screening.

“I’m thrilled to bring Jane Campion’s film and the rare quality of her filmmaking to the university for students, colleagues and community members to see and discuss,” Cohen said.

Campion, whose screenwriting work on “The Piano” earned her an Academy Award for Best Writing, penned the screenplay for “Bright Star” and directed the film. The story is about two young lovers, 24-year-old poet John Keats and his 18-year-old enchanting muse, Fanny Brawne, and what Campion describes as the “unstoppable momentum” of their intense love affair. Campion writes in letters posted on her Web site that their relationship is “a wave of romantic obsession that only deepens as their troubles mount.”

After the screening, Cohen will host a discussion and Q&A session with American poet Barbara Hamby and scholar James O’Rourke, both from Florida State’s English department.