Only six films compose the Diversity Film Festival at The Grand (April 12-29), each one a meditation on the theme of cultural diversity. The concept began a few miles (and years) away from the Grand, at Tacoma Community College. Dr. Scott Earle, a TCC English and Humanities instructor since 1999, along with fellow teachers and staff, has hosted on-campus film screenings of this sort for some time. A suggestion was made to Earle and his colleagues in late 2010 to graduate their young program - let it leave the classroom and test its wings in the community - specifically The Grand Cinema. For this year's festival, Tacoma Community College and The Grand Cinema picked a variety of dramatic and documentary films from around the world that are sure to entertain, inspire and - as colleges are wont to do - educate. Dancing in Jaffa kicks off the festival. It's the story of a dance instructor who brings together long segregated Israeli and Palestinian communities through dance.

5TH ANNUAL TCC DIVERSITY FILM FESTIVAL, 2 p.m., The Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett Ave., Tacoma, $5.50-$9, $2 for TCC students, $2 off other college students, grandcinema.com