March 31, 2016 7:00 p.m.

Humanities Center 218

Director Ben Levine’s Réveil – Waking Up French (2006) is a powerful documentary film that explores the struggle for cultural survival among the French-Canadian, Franco-American communities of New England. The film traces the French heritage beginning with immigration from the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Acadia through persecution by Ku Klux Klan and language loss, to cultural renaissance and heritage preservation.

Through their determined loyalty to the French Catholic faith, language, and cultural values, the French of New England continue to discover new ways of renewal and cultural diversity through heritage language reacquisition. Few people are more intimately familiar with Réveil – Waking Up French and its subject than Eileen M. Angelini, a Professor of French at Canisius College.

She prepared a Teacher’s Guide to the documentary at the director’s request, and it has inspired her own work as a Fulbright scholar. She will be on hand to present the film, and give insight into the importance of history and heritage understanding and how languages can be reacquired for personal and community renewal.