By Michael Machosky

Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 8:25 p.m.
Updated: Thursday, March 21, 2013

Unsurprisingly, Carnegie Mellon University has a lot of unique and interesting cultural programming on campus for students.

What is surprising is that much of it is open to the public, at minimal cost.

The concerts and performances usually aren't publicized much off campus, but the 2013 Carnegie Mellon University International Film Festival is another story — many of its films are off-campus this year, at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland.

This year's theme is “Faces of Media,” and explores how society is affected by the media and its ever-changing permutations.

The festival kicks off 7:15 p.m. March 21 with a new film by Oscar-winning auteur Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”). “The We and the I” is about a group of teenagers who ride the same public bus to school, and how their relationships change on the final day of school. This will be at Melwood.

Other highlights include “InContact,” an Israeli-American film that examines themes of intimacy, social networking and reality TV.

This will screen at 7 p.m. March 23, also at Melwood. On April 3, there will be a screening of “Blood in the Mobile” about the minerals used to make cell phones, and the destructive “blood diamonds”-type reality of their mining in Africa. This screening will be at the McConomy Auditorium at CMU.

There will also be a tribute to filmmaker and CMU professor Paul Goodman at 7 p.m. March 22, at McConomy Auditorium.

The festival closes April 13 with “Back to the Square,” an investigation of the causes behind the “Arab Spring,” by Harvard philosophy professor and filmmaker Petr Lom. The screening will at 7 p.m. in the McConomy Auditorium.

Lom also will host a workshop on making human-rights documentaries at 5 p.m. April 15 at the Giant Eagle Auditorium at CMU.

Michael Machosky is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at mmachosky@tribweb.com or 412-320-7901.

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