An appreciation of film is all it takes to join this group. The 2025-26 season is our 27th year of celebrating the medium!
Our group meets at 7 pm, on the first Tuesdays of each month from September through May, except December. We view the selected film on our own and then come together to discuss it. Typically, around a dozen people attend. In pre-COVID times, we met in members’ homes, but now we gather on Zoom; please contact info@fpcpaloalto.org for the link.
We talk about character transformation, cinematic values, etc, plus our perspectives on the faith and ethical issues raised by the films. Our discussions are rich with multiple views and observations, as well as lots of laughs and caring, all enriching our relationships. We close with prayers of the people.
Here is our 2025-26 schedule, chosen through our election process in the spring. Dates with * mean that the month in which we discuss these films might change.
| Sept 2 | Perfect Days |
| Oct 7 | Meet John Doe |
| Nov 4 | Conclave |
| Jan 6 * | The Children’s Train |
| Feb 3 * | Contact |
| Mar 3 * | Will and Harper |
| April 7 | Penguin Lessons |
| May 5 * | Inherit the Wind |
Perfect Days (2023)
Directed by Wim Wenders from a script written by Wenders and Takuma Takasaki
Availability: Amazon Prime, Hulu and libraries
A co-production between Japan and Germany, the film follows the routine life of Hirayama, who works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo’s upscale Shibuya district, across town from his modest home in a middle class neighbourhood east of the Sumida River. He repeats his structured, repetitive routine each day, starting at dawn. He dedicates his free time to his passion for music cassettes, which he listens to in his van to and from work, and to his books, which he reads every night before going to sleep. Hirayama also has a fondness for trees and photographs them.
More of his past is gradually revealed through a series of unexpected encounters. Hirayama says very little. Instead, he is an observer, attending to Tokyo and to the people in it with a tenderness and forbearance that, if you’re not paying attention, you’ll ascribe to a simple nature. It’s only when you watch his expression, at times, that something else flickers, a pain that flashes only briefly. Perfect Days exquisitely hints that the structure of Hirayama’s life enables him to exist in the present, representing a choice that may have come after a long trauma.
Meet John Doe (1941)
Directed by Frank Capra
Availability: YouTube (free), Kanopy, libraries
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Frank Capra directed a film trilogy that examined American democratic ideals in the face of a Great Depression, political corruption and the threat of fascism.
“Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” explores the responsibility of the community to help those struggling economically through the Great Depression.
“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” explored the struggles of reformers fighting against the collusion of political machines, big corporations and big government.
“Meet John Doe”, the last of the trilogy, explores the vulnerability of desperate people to the lureof demagogues and fascist movements. Gary Cooper plays John Willoughby, a homeless man who is hired by a power hungry businessman named D.B. Norton to take part in a fake social movement that would support the businessman’s political ambitions. Willoughby then realizes that the movement that he was hired to lead was meant to be a fascist movement that would install D.B. Norton in power.
Faith Issues: Faith in the face of authoritarianism, being your authentic self, human nature’s vulnerability to being corrupted by power.
Conclave (2024)
Directed by Edward Berger
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow
Availability: Peacock, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Apple TV, libraries
Cardinal Lawrence organizes one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events, a conclave to select the new pope. Surrounded by powerful religious leaders in the halls of the Vatican, he soon uncovers a trail of deep secrets that could shake the very foundation of the Roman Catholic Church.
Faith Issues: How fallible humans seek to determine and act out God’s will.