Bangkok Cinema Scene special: French Open Air Cinema Festival 2011

The Embassy of France and the Alliance Française host the third French Open Air Cinema Festival at Lumpini Park from January 14 to 16 and at Santi Chai Prakan Park from January 21 to 23.

Among the highlights is Jean-Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), hailed among the world's best movies.

Here's the schedule:

Lumpini Park

• January 14: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) – Francophiles can sing along to Jacques Demi's 1964 musical, which stars Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo.
• January 15: Le Hussard sur le Toit (The Horseman on the Roof) – 1995's historical romance and adventure by Jean-Paul Rappeneau is set during in restive 19th-century Europe. Olivier Martinez is the horseman of the title, a cavalry officer who encounters the wife of a marquis, played by Juliette Binoche.
• January 16: La Fille de Monaco (The Girl from Monaco) – Anne Fontaine’s 2008 comedy-drama stars bubbly Louise Bourgoin and Fabrice Luchini. It's the tale of a lawyer, in Monte Carlo to defend a murder suspect with ties to the mob, who's drawn into a risky romance with a twentysomething TV weather girl.

Santi Chai Prakan Park

• January 21: A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) – Jean-Paul Belmondo is a fugitive petty criminal who goes in to hiding with the help of his girlfriend, an American woman (Jean Seberg). Jean-Luc Godard directs this ground-breaking 1960 romance and crime drama, which was one of the first films of the French New Wave.
• January 22: L’Heure Zéro (Towards Zero) – Everyone's a suspect in Pascal Thomas’ 2007 whodunit comedy, which is based on a novel by Agatha Christie.
• January 23: Les Enfants de Timpelbach (Trouble at Timpetill) – Gerard Depardieu and Carole Bouquet star in this comedy by Nicolas Bary, which is about children in a small European mountain village who end up being its only residents after the adults cannot take their behavior any longer.

Show times are at 7, all in French with English subtitles. Call (02) 670 4231 or check the Alliance Française website for more details.