East Central University will screen the heartbreaking true story “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” at 4 p.m. Monday, April 13, in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center of the Bill S. Cole University Center.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo spent three years in India recording the lives of its residents. From her uncompromising book, winner of the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2012, comes this “magnificent” (Independent) and “compelling” (Daily Telegraph) play.
ECU SCREENS is collaborating with Sigma Tau Delta and The Honors Student Association to show the recorded-live production of “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” performed at the Royal National Theatre of London. Open to the public, the screening is free for students with an ECU ID, $5 for other students, and $10 for members of the community.
India is surging with global ambition. But beyond the luxury hotels surrounding Mumbai airport lies a makeshift slum, full of people with plans of their own. Zehrunisa and her son Abdul aim to recycle enough rubbish to fund a proper house. Asha seeks to steal government anti-poverty funds to turn herself into a “first-class person,” while her daughter Manju intends to become the slum’s first female graduate. But their schemes are fragile. As a worldwide recession threatens the garbage trade, another slum-dweller is about to make an accusation that will destroy herself and shatter the neighborhood.
Before and after the screening, ECU’s Rotaract Chapter will be selling snacks and sharing information about their 2015 International Project: raising funds to help the World Toilet Organization build restrooms in rural communities in India and Cambodia.
This showing is the seventh in a series of eight foreign films and NT Live productions that will be presented by ECU SCREENS this spring. NT Live is the National Theatre's groundbreaking project to broadcast the best of British theatre to cinemas around the world. The final showing of the spring season, “Of Mice and Men,” will occur on April 30 at 6:30 p.m.
To learn more about ECU SCREENS and the screening schedule, follow them at www.facebook.com/ECU.SCREENS or visit www.ecuscreens.blogspot.com. For more information about the Royal National Theatre in London and the NT Live screenings, visit https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/. Dr. Rebecca Nicholson-Weir, co-director of ECU SCREENS, may be contacted at (580) 559-5929 or rnichlsn@ecok.edu.
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