Bluffton University's Institute for Learning in Retirement, an educational program for retirees, will host its first film festival March 6-8.

One movie will be shown each day in Yoder Recital Hall, with a short introduction preceding each screening at 9:15 a.m. Following the films will be discussions over lunch in the Gilliom Room of Mosiman Hall.

Catered lunches will be provided for $8 apiece, or participants can bring their own lunch. Cost for the three-day festival is $10; registration is due by Feb. 27.

The festival will open March 6 with "Of Gods and Men," a 2010 film in French with English subtitles. Based on actual events in 1996, the movie tells the story of Trappist monks who have lived peaceably next to a Muslim village in rural Algeria but, when caught in the crossfire between the army and terrorists, must decide whether to stay or leave.

The March 7 film is "Silent Light," in German dialect and Spanish with English subtitles. The 2007 movie is set in a Mennonite colony in Mexico, where a husband and father is tormented with guilt over his extramarital affair.

Wrapping up the festival on March 8 will be, from 1997, "The Apostle," written and directed by Robert Duvall. Duvall also stars as a Pentecostal preacher with marital problems who starts anew in an African-American church in rural Louisiana.

To register or for more information, contact Janet "J.P." Schumacher, ILR director, at 419-358-3346 or [email protected].