A film festival to be hosted on WKU’s campus will have a French teenage flair.

Jerod Hollyfield, who is organizing the event, said adolescence is a common theme.

“Everybody goes through it, no matter what country you’re from — same issues,” he said. “It’s just modified by cultural context.”

The French Film Festival will show five films centered around adolescence.

The festival is scheduled from Friday, April 5 through Tuesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. in Cherry Hall, Room 125.

Hollyfield said the festival will help American students and members of the community gain a different cultural perspective — with films that are different than the ones people in the Bowling Green community might normally be exposed to.

“They generally don’t have the same kind of reach as Hollywood blockbusters do,” he said.

That sentiment was one echoed by another organizer of the festival, Ted Hovet.

“The movies we’re showing in our festival are not ones that played in Bowling Green,” he said, noting that these types of films do at times play in larger cities.

The festival is organized in part through a grant program with the French American Cultural Exchange, which is associated with the French embassy, Hollyfield said.

But the possibility of the films becoming available through French partners is not the only reason for the festival.

“As someone who teaches film history here at WKU, probably next to the United States, France has had a larger impact on world cinema than any other country,” Hovet said.

The organizers are also hoping those who attend the festival — whether students or community members — will come away with a different perspective on something most everyone has experienced.

“They’re all very thought-provoking,” Hovet said. “We expect that students will come out of these films entertained, but also with some new ideas and thoughts.”

The common theme and the continuity between the films, Hollyfield said, is also a reason for people to keep coming as the five-day festival continues.

“It rewards people that come to more than one film,” he said.

Winchester senior Kasey Thompson, vice president of Film Club, is a film and theatre major, and said she has been trying to get the word out and get more publicity for future events like this.

“I’m glad overall there’s a lot of different kinds of films that are being shown,” she said.

Thompson also said she thinks film is a great medium to learn.

“You learn from film all the time,” she said. “It kind of just gives you a different perspective, and it’s also entertaining.”