3rd Annual Mediterranean Film Festival

Kristina Nungaray October 30, 2014 4:00AM

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The 3rd Annual Mediterranean Film Festival adds films from Spain this year. Organized by the Houston-area consulates of Croatia, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Spain and Turkey, and in conjunction with Rice University Media Center, the festival screens several films from the region including an adult retelling of Snow White and what may be the first Christmas movie made in Turkey.

On Friday, there’s an opening reception followed by the French film, Marius (6 p.m.). As the first film in Daniel Auteuil’s remake of Marcel Pagnol’s trilogy of plays, “Marius is a high-profile film…[and] a great costume drama,” Dr. Charles Dove, cinema director at Rice University, tells us. Set in 1920s Marseille, the story follows Marius, a man with a wanderlust for the sea, and Fanny, the young woman who loves him. Dove says that several of the movies on this year’s schedule are comedies and some are family-friendly. Highlights include A Matter of Size (8 p.m. Saturday), “a fun and appealing Israeli film about a chef who becomes a sumo wrestler” and Jolly Life (4 p.m. Sunday), a “Turkish Christmas film about a Muslim who gets a job at the mall as Santa Claus.” Each film is screened with English subtitles.

6 to 9 p.m. Friday; 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Rice University, 6100 Main. For information, call 713‑348‑4853 or visit cinema.rice.edu. Free.

Photo: Marius
Fri., Oct. 31, 6-9 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 1, 4-10 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 2, 4-10 p.m., 2014