Ashland University’s Foreign Language department is giving students and community members the chance to explore other cultures through film. Throughout the month of January they will host the Tournées Film Festival that will feature five recent French films and one classic film.

This event began on Jan. 14 but gears back on Jan. 21. It is in collaboration with Ashland University’s College of Arts and Sciences, which was made possible by a grant from the French-American Cultural Exchange received by Dr. Richard Gray, associate professor of foreign languages, who organized the festival. Gray is the only professor in the Midwest to have received this grant six of the last seven years.

Getting inspired to dig deeper into other cultures is something that AU senior, Jared Ryder takes to heart.

“I don’t like the idea of staying in one place for too long,” Ryder said. “Getting out of the country to just explore what else is out there is something I seriously plan on doing, and you know what, for some people watching movies from other cultures is their way of doing that.”

This festival is free and open to the public. It will begin at 7 pm each evening listed and will be in the Ronk Lecture Hall in the Schar College of Education.

This year’s schedule is as follows:

Jan. 14- The 1934 classic, “L’Atalante”. This film is considered one of the foundation stones of French cinema and frequently cited as one of the top 10 films ever made. Jean Vigo’s only full-length feature film explores the comedic and dreamlike aspects of daily living with the story of newlyweds aboard a river barge with another man, a cabin boy and a host of unruly cats.

Jan. 15- “Madame Hyde,” a 2017 adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but set in a high school in a tough Paris suburb and infused with a mix of B-movie chills, dry humor and contemporary reality.

Jan. 21- “Vivre Riche,” a fly-on-the-wall documentary from 2017 about young internet scammers in Abidjan, the film also raises questions about the European colonial legacy and the moral compass of a young generation with few opportunities.

Jan. 22- “Le Concours,” (The Competition) comes to the screen. This 2016 Claire Simon documentary takes a step-by-step look at the highly competitive process students undertake in order to be admitted to La Femis, France’s leading film school.

Jan. 28- ”Mes Provinciales” (A Paris Education), Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s fresh spin on a time-honored narrative tradition. The audience follows the life of aspiring filmmaker and university student Etienne Tinan, using the time-honored themes of solitude, devotion, hope and hopelessness.

Jan. 29- 2018’s “Tazzeka,” which also is the name of the Moroccan village that is home to Elias, an aspiring chef who finds nothing is what he imagined when he leaves his hometown for the roaring traffic of Paris.