I often assign in-class essays for my foreign students and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what might be the most effective exercise for their skills. To be fair, or perhaps just, I try to avoid works that are culturally bound, dialogue dependent, and excessively simplistic.
Some videos or films require the viewer to be versed in the culture to understand the otherwise obscure local references. This might help those students who are fond of western films, but does little for those for whom the references are merely more proof of the madness of western culture. For example, many American films which feature young love might be viewed as pornography by people with a different set of mores, and they would therefore miss the cues that identify the film as a tender portrayal of youthful idealism and sensitivity. Poverty and crime tend to be viewed differently as well. In South East Asia, for instance, being poor does not mean a person is morally bankrupt, but rather might be the victim of bad luck or is possibly paying for the sins of a previous life. Everyone has been there, the idea seems to suggest, and they will work their way out just like everyone else did or will. Likewise, illegal actions for the good (think of American action films) might not be quite as convincing in other cultures where breaking the law is viewed as immoral.
The question of cultural understandings is somewhat different than that of understanding spoken language. Dialogue in films tends to be filled with slang and odd contexts and in-jokes. This is a nightmare morass for the struggling student. Clear dialogue can be challenging enough, as the well-traveled know. In these exercises, I tend to avoid dialogue at all, or at least minimize its importance in the assignment, since that valorizes those students whose English is excellent at the expense of those for whom spoken English is difficult, or perhaps opaque. Using a test which is dependent on understanding spoken English merely re-enacts the TOFL test (Test of English as a Foreign Language), and has little to do with the types of essay writing exercises I am interested in for my class.
Once I make the statement that I avoid culturally-bound and verbally-sophisticated texts, a reader might automatically infer that I choose rather simple renderings to test my students. They picture Disney type morals with Saturday morning cartoon 
images. Tear-jerking short Thai films come immediately to mind. They are easy to relate to, but that makes them almost trite; even while tears flood your face you wonder whether the world is slightly more complex than the story would suggest.
I don’t ask my students to make do with such bland readings of the human condition. In fact, I do exactly the opposite. Foreign students often have a profound insight into texts even though much of the cultural information may be opaque. It is a delight to loose them upon a short film, such as Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel, Heidi Wittlinger’s Das Rad, Mark Osborne’s More, or Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein’s Balance, and see what they make of it. These award winning films probe profound questions about the human condition that are universal enough to encourage anyone to probe for meaning in them. They have little, in the case of Das Rad, and no, in the other two, dialogue, and instead rely on imagery and our understanding of universal elements of human society. The environmental message of Das Rad, the notion of materialism and its disconnect from happiness in More and the horrifying effect of envy and self-centred behavior in Balance are clear to any of my students, regardless of their background.
The latest videos I tried on my students were from Sia. I asked them to interpret, using the dance performance only, what the narrative was in her controversial video, “Elastic Heart” and for my other class two days later, her “Chandelier”. Both are arty presentations of emotional states in dance, featuring the young prodigy, Maddie Ziegler. 
Both videos are also strange enough that there is lots of fodder I my students wanted to dig into the story. I showed them the videos and then asked what they thought the story of the video was. The replies ranged from strange TOEFL memorized essays to quite in-depth analysis of character, relationships, and emotive states. I had students re-examine their own lives and comment on the development of any young person. They told me of dangerous societal trends and made quite tender readings of the characters in the videos.
There is no need to dumb down any content for foreign students. In fact, the more complicated the text the more their inventiveness comes to the fore. I avoid texts which would put them at a disadvantage, but I do not pull any punches when it comes to intellectual demands, although I would likely avoid the expression “to pull a punch” with my foreign students.
