In order to motivate ESL students and engage them in different tasks effectively, it is necessary to make the tasks novel to the students. As one possible way of introducing novelty in the course, films could be used advantageously. In this study, a writing course integrated with videos of movies and cultural festival of different regions of the world including that of author's country were used as a novel activity and students' attitudes were investigated through questionnaire and open-ended comments. The students belonged to second year undergraduate course of food and nutrition sciences of a Japanese private university. In addition to the film videos as part of listening activity, students were introduced to writings of different genres such as autobiographical, general description, procedure and argumentative writings using a genre-based approach. Students were first introduced to a model writing followed by deconstructing the model writing based on a set of questions. Next, students were asked to write based on the questions to make an outline of their own writings. Following making an outline in the classroom, students constructed their own one paragraph essays. Effects of learning were assessed through students' engagement in writing and in class questionnaire on the video. It was found that students showed real interest in watching film and cultural festivals videos. With cultural festivals, students were made to make comparison with their own and report describing the interesting feature of the festival. The students were also asked to critically reflect on the festivals themselves. Because of the novelty, students actively engaged in the class making the class interesting to the students. In future, a more detailed curriculum using festivals from different parts of their country along with festivals from different parts of the world could be worth considering.