Patricia Burns receives French-American Cultural Exchange Foundation grant

Patricia Burns, lecturer in French in the Department of World Languages and Cultures, was awarded a grant from the French-American Cultural Exchange (FACE) Foundation in Education and Arts.

The grant will be used as seed money to help launch the Tournées Film Festival at Elon in February and March of next year, which will eventually become a permanent and self-sustaining annual festival.

This festival’s choice of films is based on the desire to link the festival content with French course offerings as well as events and courses across the campus. In a time of global terror, mass migration and political turmoil, the theme for the festival is “Résistance,” exploring both the refusal to accept circumstances and the resilience to overcome them. In each of the films, characters and real people enact “résistance” in their lives and become stronger in the process.

The Department of World Languages and Cultures will collaborate with many colleagues from various departments, schools, programs and centers across campus to introduce the context of each film and to lead post-screening discussions as well as to advertise and help sponsor the festival.