While many students venture off campus to a local movie theater to catch the latest flicks, what they may not know is that every week the University puts on its own movie event in the Curris Center.

Cinema International is a weekly event in which movies that are not shown in most theaters are available for students to come and view for free every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in the Curris Center Theater.

In the theater, posters promoting Cinema International date back into the 1980s, and Andrew Black, interim director of Cinema International, said the University has tried to have an international cinema presence on campus since the ’70s.

On a typical weekend Cinema International has between 150 and 200 students and community members coming though its doors to experience movies more culturally diverse and visually captivating than modern movies shown in a regular cinema.

“I had a student who had never really seen a foreign movie before,” Black said. “And he went to see two of the last ones (movies) and he said that ‘At first I didn’t really understand what was going on, but really, maybe I’m not supposed to.’ International cinema is not just a difference in the language we speak, but in the visual language of a movie.”

Cinema International is funded through many departments on campus including WKMS, the study abroad department and Offic of the Provost.

The Cinema International board who chooses the movies played at Cinema International meets in the spring and comes up with all the movies it plans to show throughout the semester. Black said everyone gets together in a room and fills white boards up with movie titles they think students would be interested in seeing.

Black also said any recommendations from students on films they wish to see or any feedback from the movies shown is greatly appreciated by the board.

While most majors require foreign language and diversity classes, Cinema International is an easy way for students to further their education into those two broad topics. Black also thinks it is important that students see these types of movies on the big screen as opposed to renting them and watching them on their televisions at home, Black said.

“One of the cool things about Murray is that even though it is a small town, there is still a very large international community here that allows that exposure to other cultures,” Black said.

Some movie events Black is looking forward to in the next couple of weeks include this week’s showing of the Korean film “Pieta” which premiered Thursday and runs through Saturday night. “Pieta” is described as a powerful and provocative Korean film with a very powerful message.

Other films coming soon to the Cinema International screen are “Coffee in Berlin” and “World’s End” which Black describes as much funnier and lighter than other movies shown. He wants students to know that not all international films have to be artsy and intense.

“I think it is very important that people know that there is more going on in movies than what is just happening in America and the big movies that come into movie theaters,” Black said.

Story by Breanna Sill, Assistant Features Editor