The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

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French Film Festival is coming to Bucks

Bucks will be hosting a series of French films in the Gallagher Room at Newtown Campus from 1 April to the 12th. The theme will be‘The Family’ or in French ‘La Famille’.

The list of films are “Entre les Bras” on April 1, with refreshments offered at 6:30 and the film starting at 7 p.m, “Un air e famille” on April 3 at 7pm, “L’epine dans le ceur” on April 9 at 7pm, and “Azur et Asmar” on April 12 at 4pm with refreshments to follow.

Carol Smolen, Professor of language and literature at Bucks, said, “Our French instructors worked very hard to put this together. Theresa Montagna was able to get a cultural affairs grant from Bucks to fund this event because it was not free.

Smolen has worked very hard along with Theresa Rihl-Prior to put this together… I just want to praise our French instructors for working so hard to make this a reality.”

Smolen said: “In all of our language classes of course there is the language itself, the words, and there is a culture obviously associated with those words and so we try to teach both things.”

There is a lot of work the Department of Language and Literature has put in to make this event possible. According to Smolen, they first had to interface with the cultural affairs committee at Bucks.

Then it was on to choosing which films to show and dealing with all the commercial firms that provide these films as well as getting them here, and then getting them back after the festival.

Smolen said, “We are going to be working with CulinArt, and they have been very helpful. We are working with IT to help us set up the projection of these films in the Gallagher Room.”

This is not the first time the Language and Literature Department has put on a language and cultural event at the college. Smolen said, “Every year we try to vary the language. One year we had an Italian director come from Italy, and he premiered his film at Bucks.”

They also created exhibits on Japanese culture, which included music, artwork and a Karate exhibit with a former student that ran a karate school with his father.
Last year Spanish students worked on semester-long projects of different cultural topics and created a Hispanic museum. Smolen said, “It is French’s turn this year and one of our French instructors had an idea to search out funding for a film festival in French, of French films.”

The professors are hoping that students will be able to take some lessons away from the films. Smolen said: “I think it’s very important in the small world we live in for this younger generation, with communication instantaneous, that people see that this communication is wonderful in that it links all of us.”

Smolen is hoping that the films might encourage some people to slow down and appreciate what we have. Smolen said: “A cultural example in general, our plumbing works. We turn on the water faucet to use a delicate example and the water usually comes out, but if you go to other countries it is not always a given.

Smolen urges people to spend more time with their families instead of “bolting down their chicken breast” and going on to things they feel are more important.
All the films are free for everyone There will be refreshments available at 6:30 pm for the first film and after the last film
.