If you sometimes get tired all those cheap Hollywood DVDs available in Beijing, the city has been offering lots of other filmic options recently. Besides the Visions of China series currently happening down at CNEX, and the upcoming Nordic Documentary Festival (watch this space for upcoming details), the Second Annual EU Film Festival opened on the weekend and is continuing until December 4. Twenty-six diverse films – one from each EU nation – will screen with English and Chinese subtitles. Best of all, the screenings are FREE!

“The films were selected by each embassy with its film association”, explains EU Film Festival press officer Li Peng. “It is also the first year that SARFT (The State Administration of Radio Film and Television) has approved 10 films to be screened in cinemas in Chengdu.” Beijing audiences will get to see all 26 movies, screened in various embassies and at BC MOMA, Beijing’s new art house cinema.

Li Peng personally recommends; "Zelary, from the Czech Republic, which was nominated as the Best Foreign Film in the 2003 Academy Awards. Transition from Slovenia is a thriller which takes audiences on a tense, breathlessness ride through special editing. The Irish animation, The Secret of Kells, adopts a painterly animation style. And Kameleon from Hungary features an intriguing plot.”

Audiences are requested to bring passports for screenings in the German, Italian and Polish embassies. Registration is required by the Polish embassy. For a detail scheduled and descriptions of all these check here.

The Second EU Film Festival, free, various venues, until December 4. All film screen in original language with Chinese and English subtitles.