OPENING AT THE ART MISSION

My Life as a Zucchini (now playing) – This 2016 Swiss and French stop-motion animated film was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Film Academy Award. Round-eyed and blue-haired Icare, who prefers the name “Zucchini,” accidentally pushes his drunken mother down the stairs, causing her death. Taken by a friendly policeman to his new foster home, filled with other orphans his own age, he at first struggles in the strange and sometimes hostile environment. But Zucchini discovers he can make new friends, eventually learning to trust and love, as he searches for a new family of his own.

Kedi (now playing) – This documentary follows the lives of seven cats as they roam the streets of Istanbul, in and out of people’s lives. Director Ceyda Turin writes, “Some fend for themselves, scavenging from dumpsters, living in abandoned buildings, others are cared for by communities of people, pampered with the best cat food and given shelter for the cold months. Cats have been a part of the city for thousands of years, and so, everyone who grows up in Istanbul or lives in Istanbul has a story about a cat. Stories that are memorable; sometimes scary, sometimes spiritual, but always very personal.”

Land of Mine (opening April 7th) – A Danish-German film inspired by true events, which took place in the days after the German surrender in World War II, Land of Mine was nominated for an Academy Award in 2016. In May 1945, a group of young German prisoners of war, most of them teenagers, are tasked with the removal of more than two million mines that Germans had placed along the coast. The Danish authorities treat them with contempt, but Sergeant Rasmussen, who marches them to the dunes each day, becomes conflicted in his feelings towards them.

Art Mission and Theater is located at 61 Prospect Ave. in Binghamton. Admission ranges from $7 to $10. For show times, visit artmission.org, or by call (607) 722-6914.