This course offers an introduction to film studies as well as a space for discussing the issues of race, multiculturalism and otherness in the French context. Students will learn to watch films critically, honing their linguistic and rhetorical skills through workshops and brief assignments. While we will survey prominent works, directors, actors, genres, and aesthetic movements in French cinema, the course will also strive to decenter the “canon” by showcasing thought-provoking and esthetically groundbreaking movies made in the last two decades by filmmakers themselves of very diverse backgrounds.