By Nancy Austin, PhD. – newportFILM Outdoors Summer 2018 Humanities Blogger

With support from the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities (RICH)

Three Identical Strangers is getting major buzz as it begins its public release today. Believe the hype, and thank newportFILM for bringing Tim Wardle’s new documentary to town this Thursday, July 5th, for the third film in their summer-long free outdoor public film program. Three Identical Strangers received a special award for excellence in storytelling this year at Sundance, and it’s not hard to understand why. As mythic as Hansel and Gretel’s walk into the forest, the film is an unsettling cautionary tale about ethical choice, informed consent, and how encounters with the dark side of data-driven science can trigger resilience in some and destroy others.

The film begins as a nature/nurture story about identical triplets adopted at birth into different families and reunited by coincidence after nearly twenty years. But then the narrative changes its footings as dramatically as the boys’ lives did in the New York adoption center where they were separated and then raised unaware of the other’s existence despite living within a 100-mile radius of one another. Unsettling and fateful choices were made by the adoption center that echo into the present. The full moral complexity of the situation is best revealed by watching the film.

Three Identical Strangers invites us to bear witness to the impact choices have, and the human desire for the freedom to write our own story. Three Identical Strangers is an important and timely film for our data driven era. Who should control our data, and for what purpose? What happens when the story of our life is taken from us? Follow the breadcrumbs.

Please join newportFILM’s free outdoor screening of Three Identical Strangers on Thursday evening, July 5th, 8:30pm at Salve Regina’s spectacular O’Hare lawn by the sea, 100 Ochre Point Ave, Newport, RI. The venue and food trucks open for pre-screening picnics beginning at 6:30.

Film screening details:

Three Identical Strangers 

Thursday, July 5

8:35pm (sunset)

O’Hare Lawn at Salve Regina University: 36 Ochre Point Ave., Newport 

More at http://bit.ly/nF3IStrangers