Meet the vets (and a camel)

The College of Veterinary Medicine hosts its 52nd annual Open House April 7 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is open to all ages, with activities including tours, more than two dozen interactive and educational exhibits, talks, demonstrations and live animals.

Visitors can tour the Teaching Dairy Barn and Animal Health Diagnostic Center, learn about dog body language, how to save wildlife and tend to injured animals, and household toxins to avoid with pets; mingle with farm animals at a petting zoo; or meet a camel, chinchillas, rats, lizards and snakes, among other exotics. The Teddy Bear ER welcomes your stuffed animals in need of care.

Demonstrations include canine acupuncture, performance treadmills for dogs and horses, canine agility with the Ithaca Dog Sports Club, and a presentation by the Cornell Raptor Program. Students, faculty and staff will answer questions about a career as a veterinarian, veterinary technician or animal care specialist.

Admission is free and donations are welcome; bringing personal pets is not allowed. For information, email cornellopenhouse2018@gmail.com.

Glorioso blanco y negro

Over the next three Tuesdays, Cornell Cinema presents Spanish-language entries in the long, rich tradition of “city films.” Set in Havana, New York and Mexico City, the films are being shown in conjunction with the course Cinematic Cities, taught by Patricia Keller and Cecelia Lawless.

Cosponsored with the Department of Romance Studies, “Tres ciudades en blanco y negro (Three Cities in Black and White)” begins April 10 at 7 p.m. with a new digital restoration of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s “Memories of Underdevelopment” from 1968, the first post-revolution Cuban film shown outside of Cuba.

On April 17, David Riker’s neorealist “La Ciudad” (1999), shot on location over six years, depicts recent Latino immigrants struggling to create new lives in New York City. “Güeros,” screening April 24, is an acclaimed deadpan comedy from 2015, in which slackers go on a quest to find their childhood idol, a singer hospitalized somewhere in Mexico City. With echoes of Godard and Jarmusch, Alonso Ruis Palacio’s film won five Ariel awards, Mexico’s Oscar, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Also showing: For what came to be his final film, Abbas Kiarostami challenged himself to create a dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and photographer. The result, “24 Frames,” is screening April 11 and 12 at 7 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre.

The poetic Iranian director of 1997 Palme d’Or winner “Taste of Cherry,” Kiarostami digitally animated 24 of his still images, including several scenes of foraging birds and wildlife, into subtly unfolding four-and-a-half-minute vignettes. Reconstructing the moments just before and after a photograph is taken, Kiarostami creates studies in motion, perception and time.

Languages, food, coffee and tea

Southeast Asian Language Week, April 9-13, will celebrate and highlight the Southeast Asian languages offered at Cornell with events across campus – including conversation hours in four languages, coffee and tea tastings, and dinners on West Campus featuring Southeast Asian cuisine.

Three coffee and tea tastings from noon to 2 p.m. will offer hot and cold beverages from different Southeast Asian countries, April 9 in Willard Straight Hall, April 11 on the first floor of Trillium (in Kennedy Hall) and April 13 in the Mann Library Lobby.

Conversation hours will be held in: Thai, April 9, 3:30-5 p.m., 110 Rockefeller Hall; Vietnamese, April 10, 4:30-5:30 p.m. in G24-B Language Resource Center; Khmer, April 11, 4:30-5:30 p.m. at the Big Red Barn; and Filipino (Tagalog), April 12, 5-6 p.m. in 374 Rockefeller Hall.

Dinners with Cornell’s Southeast Asian student groups and language instructors are April 10 at Becker House Dining and April 12 at Cook House Dining. Both locations open at 5 p.m.

Free speech and hate speech

Two legal scholars will discuss the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and its protections extending to hate speech, April 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Landis Auditorium, 184 Myron Taylor Hall.

Part of the Free Speech Presidential Speaker Series, the event is open to the public and will be livestreamed on CornellCast. Overflow seating will be available in 182 and 186 Myron Taylor Hall.

The conversation features Jeremy Waldron, New York University professor of law and author of “The Harm in Hate Speech,” and New York Law School professor Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and author of the forthcoming “Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship.” Cornell Law School professor Sherry Colb will moderate. A book signing follows the conversation.

Initiated by President Martha E. Pollack to address campus climate, the speaker series is sponsored by the Office of the President and Cornell Law School.

Farm fresh goods

The weekly Farmers’ Market at Cornell returns Thursday, April 12, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Ag Quad. The student-run market promotes access to healthy, nutritious food for the campus community and offers fresh, locally sourced foods from Cornell student groups and local and regional farmers and food producers.

Offerings include fresh produce from Dilmun Hill student-run organic farm, local honey from HoneyRock Farm, breads and baked goods (baked fresh on Wednesdays) from the Cornell Bread Club, and lunch dishes made with predominantly local and organic ingredients by Iron Owl Kitchen.

The market continues Thursdays through the semester and is open to the public.

Producer in the limelight

Cornell Cinema presents a conversation via Skype with Hollywood film producer David Greenbaum ’98, April 12 at 5 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. The event is free and open to the public.

Greenbaum is co-head of production for Fox Searchlight Pictures. He will discuss his work in a conversation with Lynda Bogel, retired senior lecturer in English.

A onetime American studies major at Cornell, Greenbaum has shepherded award-winning films including Guillermo Del Toro’s recent Best Picture Oscar-winner “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” as well as “Battle of the Sexes,” “Wild” and the upcoming Wes Anderson film “Isle of Dogs.”

Supporting the free press

The Cornell Model United Nations Conference and the Cornell Daily Sun will host a Freedom of the Press Gala, April 13, 7-9 p.m. in the Physical Science Building’s Baker Portico.

The evening includes invited speakers, entertainment, catered dessert and raffles. Tickets are $15 each, $10 for students. All proceeds will benefit Reporters Without Borders.

The event aims to promote awareness of international press freedom in support of organizations working to secure those freedoms, and initiatives including the Forbidden Stories Project.

The world of cotton

Tasha Lewis, assistant professor of fiber science and apparel design, will discuss the world of cotton, a part of the human experience since ancient times, April 12 at 4 p.m. in 160 Mann Library.

Lewis is co-editor of “Cotton: Companies, Fashion and the Fabric of our Lives,” a book based on an investigative research project involving undergraduate and graduate students, faculty researchers and businesses using cotton to make garments. The project gave them a better understanding of how cotton is sourced, priced, transported, manipulated and sold to the consumer.

She will discuss cotton in the context of the fashion industry, the role of brands in marketing goods, and the “Made in the USA” campaign and its appeal to consumers concerned with local employment and social responsibility.

The Chats in the Stacks book talk is free, open to the public and includes light refreshments. Buffalo Street Books will have books for purchase and signing.