Whether you are an aspiring student director or an avid film buff, the 2011 Petaluma Fall Cinema Series has something for you.
Starting Sept. 7 and ending  Dec. 14, films will be shown every Wednesday in the Carole L. Ellis Auditorium on the Petaluma campus of SRJC. Each screening begins at 7 p.m., with a pre-film lecture that starts at 6 p.m. and lasts 45 minutes to 1 hour. Discussion follows until 10 p.m.
This fall semester the Cinema Series plans on showing 15 films: “District 9,” “Black Swan,” “Treasure of Sierra Madre,” “The Believer,” “Amelie,” “Short Films of Jamie Travis,” “Touch of Evil,” “Let the Right One In,” “City of God,” “Departures,” “Safety Last,” “The Passenger,” “Baraka” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
Every film is open to the community to attend and join in the discussion.
Film and Media Studies instructor Michael Traina started the Cinema Series more than two years ago and it has become a thriving community event. Traina came to SRJC in 2008, after teaching Media and Film Studies in Southern California for 13 years.
When Traina started the Media 42 class, he found that Sonoma County lacked a strong film scene. Only 16 students were enrolled in his course and only 30 to 40 community members showed up to film screenings in Ellis Auditorium.
“Both audiences have grown considerably,” Traina said. “What was 16 students is now 100 and we have in some cases tripled and quadrupled the amount of people coming from the community.”
Traina also organizes special events for each film screening. This semester’s series will include a wide range of experiences from a live lecture by the director of “Short films of Jamie Travis” to a live music performance accompanying the silent film, “Safety Last.”
SRJC Humanities Professor Eric Thompson will co-present “The Believer” on Sept. 28. A scholar of Hebrew and comparative religion, Thompson was last year’s Tauser Lecturer, SRJC’s highest honor for teachers.
“We try to do a special event once a month; that doesn’t always mean a director,” Traina said. “We’ve had cinematographers, actors, writers, documentarians, musicians for silent movies and sometimes academics who have some sort of insight on the movie.”
Some of the films that Traina chooses are well-known blockbusters, beginning with “District 9” and ending with “The Wizard of Oz.” Traina likes to ease students into his class before exploring unfamiliar work and then end the semester by dissecting a film everyone is familiar with. Traina approaches the Film Series like a book club, where the aim of the films is to teach the audience the different aspects of filmmaking.
“The first four movies are kind of a broad introduction to the appreciation of the art form. They tend to be a mix of films that lend themselves to discussing the interplay between image, sound and motion,” Traina said.
Following the fourth film, movies are selected for a particular aesthetic strength they exhibit. “Amelie” showcases production design, “Touch of Evil” showcases cinematography, “City of God” showcases editing and “Departures” shows off sounds.
“The final act of the season is usually a mix of special topics,” Traina said. “I usually try to end with a crowd pleaser. There is a structure to the season, and every season we are trying to uncover the language of cinema.”
General admission is $5 per screening or $40 for the entire semester. Students pay $4, but with an Associated Student membership, admission is free.