The López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science (joint centre of the CSIC and the University of Valencia), based at the Palau the Cerveró, and the Cinema Club of the UVEG present the film series Visions sobre les drogues. The film series will start next Thursday 12 December with the screening of the film The Man with the Golden Arm, (Otto Preminger 1955). On Monday 16 the film Christiane F (Wir Kinder wom Bahnfof Zooo, Uli Edel 1981) will be screened. And the next Thursday 19 December in the last session of the film series the film Requiem for a dream will be screened (Darren Aronofsky, 2000).

The screenings that will take place the days mentioned at 18:00 in the conferences room of the Palau de Cerveró , will be in original version with subtitles in Spanish. Each session will consist in a previous presentation by a member of the Cinema Club of the University of Valencia and a specialist on the subject matter, in this case Francisco Bueno Cañigral, Head of the Municipal Drug dependence Plan Service of the Counsellorship for Health and Consumer Affairs (City Council of Valencia). Also, after the screening a discussion in which the audience can participate will be open. The film series coordinated by Rafael Aleixandre, doctor in Medicine and tenured scientist of the López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science (CSIC-UVEG), will deal from different points of view the impact that addictions to different substances have in persons. Many times only the problems generated by physical and psychological dependence of addicts are considered; but we forget about the legal, family, social, emotional, economic, labour implications, etc…that drugs consumption implies. So we want to provide different views on this problem in a dynamic, consumerist, hedonistic and tolerant society against drug use.

In the first session the film The Man with the Golden Arm will be screened. After overcoming a detoxification in a hospital, the jazz drummer Frankie Machine comes back to Chicago. There he finds his friends and his wife Zosh, who has suffered a car accident. He tries to make a living playing poker in slums, where he meets Molly, a beautiful dancer who wishes that Frankie changes his dangerous lifestyle. Despite her efforts, he falls back again in drugs and he is discovered by his fellow players making tricks during a game. He drugged and confused is unable to play a song during a performance, while a friend discovers that his wife is lying Frankie about her paralysis after the car accident for keeping him by her side.

In the session of Monday 16 December the film Christiane F will be screened. Story about the effects of drugs in youth. Christiane F is a 14 year old teenager who little by little becomes addict to heroin to the point of having to prostitute herself for paying her addiction. Based on true events its harshness didn’t prevent the film of being a box- office hit in Europe.

The third and last film of the film series is Requiem for a dream. Harry (Jared Leto) and his mother (Ellen Burstyn) have very different dreams: she’s constantly on a diet waiting for participating in her favourite television programme. The ambition of Harry and her girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connely) is getting rich selling drugs and using the profits for opening their own business, but they never have enough money for this. However, Harry and Marion do not resign and they will do unimaginable things for achieving the life they wish.

The López Piñero Institute for the History of Medicine and Science (joint centre of the University of Valencia and CSIC) and the Cinema Club of the University of Valencia.