The annual French Film Festival is back for the 13th time. While featuring various workshops and a discussion relating to French cinema, the main highlight is undoubtedly the resplendent lineup of films on offer. Hitchcockian thrillers and lovelorn musicals? G*rard Depardieu and Marion Cotillard? Oui, oui, it's got them all.

This year's focus is on thrillers, with one day (April 18) dedicated especially for films of the genre. This includes a repeat showing of the festival's opening film Pars Vite et Reviens Tard (Seeds of Death), which involves a series of Parisian murders tinged with biblical symbolism and a possible bubonic plague outbreak.

Among the four thrillers being showcased, the most awaited among film buffs across Indonesia has got to be Ne Le Dis A Personne (Tell No One). Winner of Best Director and Best Actor at last year's C*sar Awards, the French box office smash tells of a widower receiving an email supposedly from his dead wife, who had been murdered eight years prior.

The email, which includes a recent video of his wife instructing him to "tell no one" soon finds him on the run from both sides of the law. Thrill-seeking audiences should expect a breathtaking payoff at the end.

Another focus of this year's festival is on films for and about children, including two animated films and the much lauded Le Voyage Du Ballon Rouge (Flight of the Red Balloon). An homage to the similarly titled 1956 classic, the film features Oscar winner Juliette Binoche as a struggling single mother to a 7-year-old boy, who seems to be followed by the titular object as he strolls about Parisian streets.

Helmed by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao Hsien, whose Three Times generated rapturous buzz at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, Red Balloon is the first of a series of films financed by the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and also marks Hou's first feature to be filmed outside Asia.

Michouis d'Auber is another noteworthy film about children in the festival. Starring veterans G*rard Depardieu and Nathalie Baye as a couple hiding their little foster son's Arab identity in a racist 1960s French village, Michou is bound to be a tale that unwittingly tugs at the audience's heartstrings.

Speaking of films dealing with the ever relevant themes of racial identity and acceptance, there's Mauvaise Foi (Bad Faith), a romantic comedy that tells of a Jewish woman in a relationship with a Muslim man. Everything is hunky dory until she falls pregnant and both have to "come out" to their respective families, which inadvertently leads to a major clash of cultures.

As a film festival isn't quite French without a dash of amour, there's quite a generous helping in this one. Apart from the aforementioned Bad Faith, there's Ma Vie N'est Pas Une Com*die Romantique (My Life is Not A Romantic Comedy), as well as Ma Vie En L'air (Love Is In The Air), which is worth catching even if just to catch a glimpse of this year's Oscar winner Marion Cotillard.

The cr*me de la cr*me of the romantic lineup this year would have to be Les Chansons D'amour (Love Songs). In competition at last year's Cannes Film Festival, it's a musical revolving around a long-term couple on the brink of entering a menage a trois with a second female but struck by a sudden tragedy.

Counting such talented thespians like Ludivine Sagnier (8 Women), Louis Garrel (The Dreamers) and Chiara Mastroianni (Marcello and Catherine Deneuve's daughter) among its singing cast, the pic tackles the decidedly French theme of threesomes and presumably gives it a certain bittersweet flavor with the musical format.

Judging from the glowing reviews that have been bequeathed upon Love Songs, it wouldn't be surprising if this melodious meditation on grief were to leave no eye dry during its screenings here.

If the French Film Festival feels right with an array of romance flicks, then it feels complete with the inclusion of bawdy gay farce Poltergay. In it, Emma and Marc are two lovebirds who move into an old house that has stayed unoccupied for three decades. Unbeknownst to them, it's haunted by five homosexual spirits who perished in an accident there in the 70s. Since Marc is the only one who can see the apparitions, his increasingly erratic behavior drives Emma to walk out on him. Feeling sorry for him, the ghosts decide to help him get his girl back, with hilarious results.

On the bleaker flipside of the pink coin, there's Les T*moins (The Witnesses), a multifaceted character drama with central themes of gay love and AIDS in the 80s, featuring sultry Emmanuelle B*art as a writer whose husband has an affair with a HIV-positive man.

Also worth a peek is Lagerfeld Confidential, a revealing documentary on the famous fashion designer that was two years in the making.

With footage of Nicole Kidman, Princess Caroline of Monaco and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, this somewhat fly-on-the-wall look at the elusive legend of haute couture is a must-see for every Indonesian fashionista.

Finally, the festival will close with a screening of Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).

It's based on the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a massive stroke that left him almost completely paralyzed and had to write the book by blinking one letter at a time to an interlocutor. Arguably the most acclaimed French film of last year, the life-affirming picture managed to garner its visionary director Julian Schnabel (Before Night Falls) the Best Director prize at Cannes, as well as a nod at this year's Academy Awards.

With the splendid array of films on display, it would be wise to get tickets before they're sold out. Besides, for those uninitiated to French cinema, it might be time to extend one's knowledge of French exports beyond Louis Vuitton and Herm*s.

The 13th French Film Festival runs from April 12-20 at Blitz Megaplex Grand Indonesia and Pondok Indah 21 Theater (Mall 1) in Jakarta, as well as six other major cities across Indonesia. For more information go to www.sinemaperancis.com

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