LEWISTON — “The Night of Truth,” set in a fictitious country following a decade of civil war, will open Bates College’s schedule of Global Lens 2010 films from around the world.

The film, by director Fanta Regina Nacro, will be shown at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10-11, in Room 105 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. Admission is $5.

Hosted by the Bates College Museum of Art, the series will continue on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the fall.

The Global Film Initiative produces Global Lens to promote cross-cultural understanding by showing little-known, skillfully made independent films to American audiences.

“This year’s films are some of our boldest, most visually striking, unique visions to date. Each filmmaker is reimagining our world from an entirely fresh viewpoint,” said Susan Weeks Coulter, board chair of the Global Film Initiative.

Mirroring the political strife and genocide in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, “The Night of Truth” (100 minuntes) opens as preparations are under way to end a decade of civil war in a fictitious country. A peace agreement is about to be signed and celebrated in a night of reconciliation and laying-down of arms. The film depicts the gathering of rebels and government forces, all bringing years of rage, grief, hope, suspicion and bitterness.

Nacro was the first woman in Burkina Faso to direct a film, the short “Un Certain Matin” (1992). She studied at the national film school of Burkina Faso, as well as the Sorbonne, where she earned masters degrees in film and audiovisual studies. Made in 2004, “The Night of Truth” is her first feature. It won Best Screenplay at the 2004 San Sebastian International Film Festival.

Other films on the 2010 Global Lens schedule are as follow:

“Adrift” (2009): Vietnamese director Bui Thac Chuyen’s sensuous and absorbing film depicts a wife, ignored by her immature spouse, who is caught in a love triangle during a languorous summer. Tracing emotional and psychological landscapes of lust and desire, the film is an atmospheric tale set in modern Hanoi (Sept. 17-18).

“Becloud” (2009): In this shrewd and well-acted story set in 1960s Mexico, director Alejandro Gerber Bicecci tells the tale of three men from a poor urban district who share a defining incident from childhood that links the destinies of their entire neighborhood (Sept. 24-25).

“Gods” (2008): Peruvian director Josue Mendez focuses on the soon-to-be wife of a wealthy industrialist who is eager to shed her working-class background for the opulence of her fiance’s elite lifestyle, but instead finds the ironic contrasts of fate and ambition (Oct. 1-2).

“Masquerades” (2008): This heartfelt comedy starring, directed and co-written by Lyes Salem centers around a gardener in a dusty Algerian village who dreams of improving his family’s fortune and marrying off his narcoleptic sister to a “real gentleman”— but she has other plans (Oct. 8-9).

“Leo’s Room” (2009): Director Enrique Buchichio’s film is a coming-of-age story set in the heart of Montevideo, Uruguay, about an affable but secretly troubled young man who is forced by a chance reunion with a classmate to consider the true meaning of his reclusive lifestyle (Oct. 15-16).

“My Tehran For Sale” (2009): Iranian director Granaz Moussavi depicts a terminally ill actress fighting for political asylum, and waiting to clear Australian immigration, as she recounts to an unsympathetic official her attempts to live, work and love in Tehran’s thriving yet turbulent arts subculture. (Oct. 29-30)

“Ocean of an Old Man” (2008): Set in the devastating aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Indian director Rajesh Shera’s feature debut portrays an elderly British schoolteacher coming to grips with his own loss as he searches for missing students on the remote Indian islands of Andaman and Nicobar. (Nov. 5-6).

“Ordinary People” (2009): Serbian director Vladimir Perisic tells the story of a young soldier who, one quiet afternoon during an unspecified conflict in the Balkans, is forced to come to a painful reconciliation with his own actions after following orders to execute civilians (Nov. 12-13).

“The Shaft” (2008): Director Zhang Chi’s wise and poetic debut comprises three intertwined stories about a father, son and daughter fighting to hold onto hope and family as they face the harsh realities of life in a poor Chinese mining town. (Dec. 3-4).

“Shirley Adams” (2009): In this deeply affecting portrait of ordinary courage in present-day South Africa by director Oliver Hermanus, a single mother struggles to care for her paraplegic teenage son in a depressed district on the outskirts of Cape Town (Dec. 10-11).

For more information, call 786-6135 or e-mail olinarts@bates.edu.