Best of Open Air Cinemas

David Lynch cast Naomi Watts, who was ready to give up acting, as a blonde who arrives in LA certain she’ll be a star, in what was meant to be a pilot for ABC. Luckily the network turned it down, and the dreamlike, unsettling Hollywood nightmare it became now has cult status. — The only survivor of a car crash on a road outside Los Angeles walks away from the wreck with no memory of who she is. She takes shelter in an empty flat, and that’s where Betty finds her, fresh from Canada and sure she’s about to become an actress. Together the two women set out to discover who this stranger is, and who she used to be. — Nomination for Best Director | Oscars | 2002 Nomination for Best FIlm | Golden Globes | 2002 Best Editing | BAFTA | 2002 Best Director | Cannes Film Festival | 2001

Bright, explosive and tender, Almodóvar’s Oscar winner is dedicated to Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider and his own mother. A woman who has lost her son sets out to find the boy’s father, and on the way she finds friends in women who won’t let her fall. — Esteban dies on his seventeenth birthday, struck by a car in Madrid as he runs to get an actress’s autograph. His mother, Manuela, walks away from everything and heads to Barcelona in search of the boy’s father, whom Esteban never met. The man has never heard that he had a son. — Best International Film | Oscars | 2000 Best Director | Cannes Film Festival | 1999 FIPRESCI Prize | San Sebastian Film Festival | 1999 Best European Film | European Film Awards | 2000 Best Director | BAFTA | 2000

You can’t beat a Greek mother. The cinematic surprise of the year comes from Greece: an authentic tragicomedy that will entertain you from beginning to end, with Audience awards at the Thessaloniki and Trieste film festivals. Starring Eleni Kokkidou and Greek rapper Negros tou Moria. — While filming absent civil servants, a documentary crew stumbles upon Haroula, a desperate, overprotective Greek mother in search of her son. But when he is accused of fraud, Haroula sets out with her other, disabled son and a Greek-African taxi driver to bring him back home where he belongs. Even if this means discovering who her son really is. — Audience Award - Greek Festival | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2022 Audience Award - Meet the Neighbours | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2022 Greek Film Centre Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2022 Youth Jury Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2022 Audience Award | Trieste Film Festival | 2023

A hilarious mainstream Italian comedy with sharp commentary and situations that would be plausible anywhere in the Greek provinces, traversing the fine line between legal and illegal. — Municipal elections are upon a small Sicilian village, Pietramare. The current mayor is a corrupt man, ready to continue serving in a similar fashion. This time, however, a new candidate seeks office, an idealist and exemplary citizen. Against all odds, he wins the elections and a new era of legitimacy and order begins. Are the villagers ready to welcome the change?

The rom-com as we loved it in the 90s returns with the unmistakable ingredients of the Parisian bookstore Shakespeare & Company, Jane Austen and a hopelessly romantic but single protagonist. Comfortingly classic, refreshingly modern and unpretentiously funny. — Agathe finds herself in desperate singlehood. Her dream is to experience love akin to a Jane Austen novel and her ultimate aspiration is to become a writer. Instead, she spends her days selling books in Shakespeare & Co, in Paris. Soon, she must confront her insecurities to finally fulfill her ambition of becoming a novelist and put an end to wasting her sentimental life. — Official Selection | Toronto Film Festival | 2024

Many still call it the most beautiful film ever made. When two neighbours discover that his wife and her husband are having an affair, the camera never once shows the cheating couple’s faces, and what grows between the two left behind is a love that never happens, yet you feel it with every sense. — Chow, a newspaper editor, rents a new flat with his wife, and on the other side of the wall lives Li-zhen, whose husband is a salesman who’s nearly always away. Chow’s wife is hardly ever home either, and one evening the two neighbours work out that their spouses are having an affair with each other. Left alone together, they share something neither of them wants to name. — Best Actor (Tony Leung) | Cannes Film Festival | 2000 Best Foreign Language Film | César Awards | 2001 Best Actor (Tony Leung) | Hong Kong Film Awards | 2001 Best Actress (Maggie Cheung) | Hong Kong Film Awards | 2001 Best Film Editing | Hong Kong Film Awards | 2001

This is the cult film of the 1990s that everyone should know, and Mathieu Kassovitz began writing it on the day a seventeen-year-old was shot during a police interrogation in Paris. Three friends, energy that bursts off the screen, and Vincent Cassel waving a gun around. — The morning after a night of rioting in the Paris suburbs finds Vinz, Hubert and Saïd with nothing to do and nowhere to go. A friend of theirs is lying in hospital in a coma after the police beat him the night before. It’s going to be a long day, and the three of them will make the most of every hour. — Best Director | Cannes Film Festival | 1995 Best Film | César Awards | 1996 Best European Film | European Film Awards | 1996

One of the most beloved films of European cinema in the 2010s, a family drama full of humor, love, and humanity. A movie that feels like the warmest embrace. Its English-language remake, titled CODA, won 3 Academy Awards - including Best Picture. — All members of the Bélier family are deaf, except for 16-year-old Paula, who acts as the interpreter for her parents on a daily basis - especially when it comes to managing the family farm. One day, encouraged by her music teacher, she decides to audition for a prestigious vocal choir. A life-defining choice that signals her separation from her family and the inevitable transition into adulthood. — Nomination for Best European Comedy | European Film Awards | 2015 Most Promising Actress (Louane Emera) | César Awards | 2015 Best Actress (Karin Viard) | Lumiere Awards | 2015 Most Promising Young Actress (Louane Emera) | Lumiere Awards | 2015

Amélie Poulain is a lonely Montmartre waitress who notices everything about the people around her and quietly sets about mending strangers’ lives. Paris looks even lovelier than the real thing, Yann Tiersen’s score is one many people still know by heart, and you’ll walk out with a lighter heart. — Amélie Poulain is a shy, kind-hearted waitress in Montmartre. Behind a loose tile in her bathroom she finds a box of treasures a little boy hid there years ago, so she tracks down its owner and gives it back without letting him know who she is. Soon she’s secretly making everyone around her happier, and nobody suspects a thing. Her own life is another matter: she hasn’t even started on that. — Nomination for Best Original Screenplay | Oscars | 2002 Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2002 Nomination for Best Cinematography | Oscars | 2002 Nomination for Best Sound | Oscars | 2002 Nomination for Best Art Direction | Oscars | 2002 Best Original Screenplay | BAFTA Awards | 2002 Best Film | César Awards | 2002 Best Director | César Awards | 2002 Best Music | César Awards | 2002 Best European Film | European Film Awards | 2001

In the spirit of Linklater's Before trilogy and with DIY attitude, the Greek film of the year follows two people on a magically melancholic journey. Awards in Thessaloniki and a triumph at the Hellenic Film Academy Awards for the directorial debut of comic book creator Giorgos Goussis. — Elena is traveling with no destination and unexpectedly boards the ship to Kefalonia. Antonis, who is on the same ship, is heading to the island's cemetery to bury his aunt's ossuary. When his car breaks down, Elena offers to take him to a hotel and then again the next day to the cemetery, where they are told they can't keep the box for bureaucratic reasons. Having enjoyed each other's company, they decide to continue roaming around the island looking for a good place to bury the box. — Golden Alexander | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021 FIPRESCI Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021 Greek National Television Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2021 Best Film | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2022 Best Actress (Elena Topalidou) | Hellenic Film Academy Awards | 2022