The fifth annual Canadian Film Festival hits the big screen in the Bernath Auditorium at the David Adamany Undergraduate Library from April 2 to April16.

Sponsored by the WSU Canadian Studies Program, this year's selections include a group of quirky and interesting tales brought to life by Canadian directors. "Exotica," to be shown on April 2, tells the story of a tax accountant, whose wife and child have died. The accountant finds himself irresistibly drawn to a local strip joint known as "Exotica" and becomes obsessed with a friend of his deceased daughter who performs at the club.

On April 9, "The Widow of Saint Pierre" examines the true tale of an illiterate fisherman that commits murder in a night of drunken revelry. While waiting for the arrival of a guillotine from France that would be his death sentence, he falls into the care of the reticent Captain Jean and his freethinking wife, played by Oscar winner Juliette Binoche. She helps turn the fisherman into a devoted social servant, whose heroic deeds place the female population of the island strongly against his sentence.

"The Five Senses," on April 11, is a drama that centers around three days in the life of five Toronto residents living in the same apartment building. As the search for a missing child captures the city's attention, the group comes together to explore the five senses--touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight--and in doing so, come to terms with issues that have plagued them.

On April 16, "Leolo," a hypnotic film, in which fantasy and reality inextricably merge, examines an unhappy child's desperate efforts to create an alternative, pleasurable world through his imagination and creativity. A young boy, stuck in an unbelievably neurotic and dysfunctional family, fantasizes about a better life by filling notebooks full of a life much more interesting than his own. In the key fantasy, Leolo (his made-up name) imagines he is the offspring of an Italian peasant and a particularly "fertile" tomato brought to Canada in a grocery shipment. After his writings are discovered, Leolo's safe haven is shattered and he is hospitalized, where he sinks further into his imagination to create a better life than his family could provide.

All of the films begin at 6 p.m. and are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Diane Sybeldon at 313-577-4480.

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