Fresh from the success of the Academy Award–winning Slumdog Millionaire (SDFF31), British filmmaker Danny Boyle radically changes gears with the true story of Aron Ralston, a cocky outdoorsman (and longtime Colorado resident) who, in 2003, found himself fighting for his life in the wilds of Utah after a tumbling boulder pinned him to a canyon wall. Unable to extricate himself, he ran out of food, water and energy. Five days after his ordeal began, Ralston was forced to amputate his own arm with a blunt knife in order to save his life.
Based on Ralston's memoir Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Boyle's dramatization is a harrowing piece of filmmaking; neither the director nor his cinematographers, Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, shirk their responsibilities to the grisly truth. If, in Trainspotting, Boyle revealed more about the lives of Scottish junkies than the squeamish could handle, in 127 Hours, the 2010 recipient of the Mayor's Career Achievement Award does the same for his adventurer-hero—the good, the bad and the shockingly ugly.

Come just to the film screening, or join fellow Wharton and Harvard alumni afterwards for light fare and cash bar, across the street at Limelight Supper Club.