Fordham Law School’s Forum on Law, Culture & Society will light up the screen on Oct. 19when it launches the second annual Fordham Law Film Festival, one of its signature events of the year, with a full slate of movies.

The festival features six films that range from the classic (To Kill a Mockingbird) to the lesser known (True Believer) and all deal in one way or another with justice and the law. Screening of the films will be followed by discussions with guests that include Allen Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University; Cecilia Peck, daughter of actor Gregory Peck; and Adam Liptak, national legal correspondent for The New York Times.

The 2nd Annual Film Festival Gets Underway Oct. 19 Photo by Nancy Adler

The goal of the festival, said Thane Rosenbaum, John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law and director of the forum, is to offer a “blend between fun and festive and serious and provocative.”

“We want to explore what the films mean in a broader cultural sense,” he said. “What does the film teach us about the law, and how does it inform the public about what is valuable or deficient about our legal system? This year, we have gone for topics that show the law both in its glory and in its failure.”

One of the things the festival seeks to do, Rosenbaum said, is to offer a communal experience at a time when many people rent movies and watch them in the isolation of their homes. This year’s festival will open with an HBO documentary, Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later, to be screened at the HBO Theater, 1100 Avenue of the Americas. For ticket information and a full schedule of films visit the event’s website.