Part of the “Catching Up with Cuba” film series, Ghost Town (2015) introduces two extraordinary coaches who are committed to bringing out the best in their youth baseball players. They meet first on videotape, and Coach Roscoe vows to bring his players from their gang-ridden neighborhood in Oakland, Calif., to compete with Coach Nicolas’s team in Havana. When this dream is eventually realized, the boys’ enthusiasm is boundless—but then something tragic happens. The film won the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival Audience Award and the Syracuse International Film Festival Sophia Award and Basel Shehade Award For Social Justice.
Director Eugene Corr is scheduled to be present. He has broad experience in both fiction and non-fiction filmmaking. He wrote and directed the feature documentary Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey (with Robert Hillmann), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award (1991). He also wrote and directed the dramatic feature film, Desert Bloom (Jon Voight, AnnaBeth Gish), Columbia Pictures, 1986 (Sélection Officielle, Cannes Film Festival).
The film is free, but ticketed.
The “Catching Up with Cuba” film series is sponsored by CUBAmistad; School of Education; Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Center for Documentary Research and Practice; Hamilton Lugar School of International Studies; La Casa, Latino Cultural Center; Cultural Studies Program; Hands to Cuba; Ruth Lilly Professor of Poetry; Danny Smith Ballpark; Black Film Center/Archive; and IU Cinema.