This April, an IC lecture explored a unique kind of empathy shown in Chloé Zhao’s 2020 film.
Every month, International Cinema (IC) holds free showings for a selection of international films, exploring a variety of themes and displaying a wide array of cultures. In April 2025, College of Humanities faculty members and guests presented lectures about two films before their showings.
“A Cinema of Empathy: How Chloé Zhao’s 2020 Film Makes You a Better Disciple of Christ” by Rob McFarland
Have you ever watched a movie and wanted to be a better person for it? For Professor Rob McFarland (Urban Studies), Chloé Zhao’s 2020 film, Nomadland, was that movie. “Films have the ability to change how we interact with the other,” he said. Nomadland not only allowed him to see nomads in a new light, but it also helped him recognize elements of empathy he hadn’t thought of before. In his IC lecture on April 9, 2025, McFarland shared three ways Nomadland helps viewers develop empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Proximity to the Other
McFarland acknowledged that Zhao’s film asks us, as viewers, to come closer to individuals we wouldn’t normally interact with: nomads. Nomadland starts out introducing Fern, a recently widowed nomad. She found her way to the nomadic lifestyle after the Gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada closed due to the Great Recession, a severe global economic downturn triggered by the collapse of the US housing market and financial institutions in late 2007.
Leading to widespread job losses, home foreclosures, and economic instability, the Great Recession forced Fern to look for a new job and new housing. So, she bought a van to live in and traveled the country looking for work, which was a common trend during this time. Addressing this nomadic life, Zhao shows why this happened to Fern and allows the audience to feel what Fern feels. McFarland says, a film of understanding is “being right there, getting involved, getting close to people.”
Understanding
Building on this proximity, McFarland suggested that understanding emerges as the next critical step in developing empathy. Watching this film, viewers are just being asked to understand Fern’s situation and struggles. And, in the process, we realize that her homelessness and joblessness is only the tip of the iceberg.
As Fern traveled the country, she met other nomads who welcomed her in, but, for some reason, she had a hard time connecting with them. McFarland said, “The entire film is a very gentle dance with Fern coming closer to people, feeling a panic, not understanding it, and backing away.” Throughout the whole movie, Zhao asks viewers to see Fern and to truly understand her in all her complexities.
But Zhao doesn’t want us to make judgments just yet. Instead, she asks viewers to sit with the movie, with Fern’s decisions, and with her interactions with others. McFarland said, “we need to understand, which doesn’t mean fix, but we need to get them in their context.”
An Invitation to Help
And only after seeing others in all their complexities and sitting with them and their struggles, are we invited to help. McFarland said that this help starts with asking, “What kind of help would that look like?” In this way, audience members don’t make quick judgements or fixes. Instead, these offers to help become so much more impactful.
By coming in proximity to “the other,” we open our eyes and hearts up to so much more than we find in our own little circles. McFarland ended his lecture saying, “But film, like no other art, allows you to walk in somebody else’s shoes, inhabit somebody else’s body, and see through their eyes in a way that plays you, that involves all of our senses and minimizes that wall between us. And [film] allows us to be right there with people in a really important way.”
Below is a list of the other films shown during April.
Free Chol Soo Lee (2022)
“I was not an angel on the outside. At the same time, I was not the devil.”
Does society make the hero, or do an individual’s actions make the hero? Directors Julie Ha and Eugene Yi explore this question through Korean American Chol Soo Lee’s story of imprisonment. In 1974, Lee was unjustly convicted for a murder he did not commit. Over a period of 10 years—four of which, Lee served on death row—Asian American activists worked to free Lee. However, once he was released from prison, he didn’t live up to the hero the media had claimed he was, and instead, he got into drugs and gang activity. Ha and Yi show this side of Lee’s story to explain the toll that heroism plays on the hero and hope viewers will reevaluate how they see their own heroes.
The Babushkas of Chernobyl (2015)
“Radiation doesn’t scare me, starvation does!”
Would you flee or stay in the face of danger? In 1986, the worst nuclear disaster struck when Chernobyl exploded, forcing everyone within an 18.6-mile radius to relocate due to potential radiation exposure. However, a small group of women called babushkas (or grandmothers) snuck back in to reclaim their ancestral land. They tended their own farms and herds in a land deemed uninhabitable––and surprisingly, they thrived. Strong ties to their homelands and their sense of community overcame fear of radiation, creating an extraordinary tale of resilience in the face of death itself.
To read more about previous films and lectures featured at the IC, click here.