FOREIGN AFFAIRS

For Kansas City-area cineastes, the ongoing partnership between UMKC’s Department of Communication Studies and Tivoli Cinemas (4050 Pennsylvania, 913-383-7756) is essential to our continuing film education. And the latest installment in their ongoing Classic Film Series is a cinematic coup, assembling a lineup of great films rarely seen here. Tonight at 6:30, Dirk Bogarde stars as a convalescing composer drawn to the beauty of a young Polish boy in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 adaptation of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Continuing on Tuesday evenings through November 17, the series includes Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (October 20), Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (October 27), Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (November 3 — a homecoming of sorts, as its poster has long adorned the wall beside the Tivoli’s theater No. 2), and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, The Wrath of God (November 17). All screenings cost $4; free for UMKC students and staff with valid ID. For more information, see tivolikc.com.

Tue., Oct. 6, 6:30 p.m.; Tue., Oct. 13, 6:30 p.m.; Tue., Oct. 20, 6:30 p.m.; Tue., Oct. 27, 6:30 p.m.; Tue., Nov. 3, 6:30 p.m.; Tue., Nov. 17, 6:30 p.m., 2009