THE BEST OF FRENCH IN DUBLIN

The leading French director, Claude Sautet, whose recent work includes Un Coeur En Hiver and Nelly Et M. Arnaud, will be a special guest of the Eighth Dublin French Film Festival, which runs from October 17th to 31st. The rising young French director Arnaud Descheplin will also attend the festival with his first two features, La Sentinelle and Comment Je Me Suis Dispute (Ma Vie Sexuelle), both of which were selected for competition at Cannes.

Fifty new French feature films will be screened in the huge Dublin programme, including some of the best films from Cannes this year - Patrice Leconte's Ridicule and Jacques Audiard's A Self Made Hero, starring director Mathieu Kassovitz. There will be a competitive programme of French short films, and a comprehensive 18 film salute to the veteran director, Eric Rohmer.

To coincide with the Cinema 100 celebrations, Irish Times readers were invited to vote for their favourite French films of all time and from a very large entry of over 500, the top five films will be shown. Jean de Florette was noted first in the poll, followed, in order, by Manon Des Sources, Cyrano De Bergerac, Un Coeur En Hiver and Les Amants is Du Pont Neuf.

REFLECTING the boom in production here in recent years, as many as seven new Irish or Irish made films will open over the seven weeks, beginning on October 25th with the opening of Geraldine Creed's The Sun, the Moon and the Stars, featuring Angie Dickinson, Jason Donovan and Gina Moxley. Neil Jordan's Michael Collins opens across the country on November 8th and a week later sees the release of Stephen Frears's film of Roddy Doyle's The Van.

David Keating's film of Ferdia MacAnna's The Last Of The High Kings is due on November 22nd, with Pen Densham's Moll Flanders, starring Robin Wright, Morgan Freeman and John Lynch, following on the 29th. December begins with the release of the science fiction movie, Space Truckers, featuring Dennis Hopper and Stephen Dorff, followed by Martin Duffy's The Boy From Mercury and John Sayles's long delayed The Secret Of Roan Inish.

The Light House twin cinema on Middle Abbey Street in Dublin closes down tomorrow with the final screenings of Ebrahim Foruzesh's award winning Iranian film, The Jar, in the main auditorium, with the French film, Beaumarchais, and Jim Jarmusch's offbeat western, Dead Man, showing in the smaller upstairs cinema.

However, the directors of the Light House Neil Connolly and Maretia Dillon, say that the closure is "not the end, but an intermission" and they - and we - hope hope that it will return as it net purpose built three screen cinema elsewhere in the city in the near future. Meanwhile, the Light House will be sorely missed.