Tomorrow marks the start of the French Film Festival in Edinburgh, a festival which is also running in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee from April the 15th to May 6th. A fair breadth of films are being shown and none of them have a UK distribution deal in place, which makes the viewing even more interesting.

Unfortunately many of the films seem to be showing during the working day, however if you do make it along there are some treats to be had. The stars include such names as:

Isabelle Huppert, Carole Bouquet, Gérard Depardieu, Mylène Demongeot, Kristin Scott-Thomas, and Monica Bellucci.

There's also some interesting additions to the films with directors Michel Hazanavicius and Patrick Grandperret and actress Bérénice Béjo travelling to some of the locations to talk about their films and jobs.

Over the page I'll highlight a few of the films which are appearing in the festival and the different groupings of the films involved. There certainly seems to be a lot of interesting films, and I'm just sad that my knowledge of French cinema is weak and I can't find the time to attend. The good news is that I have a friend who does and she'll be giving me the tips for the good films to pass onto you.

The official press release from the official site for the French Film Festival tells us:

The Panorama section includes films by such celebrated names as Claude Chabrol (A Comedy of Power), Anne Fontaine (Oh La La!), Costa-Gavras (The Ax) as well as Bertrand Blier (How Much Do You Love Me).

The Discovery section gives pride of place to new talents: Emmanuelle Bercot (Backstage); Emmanuel Carrère (The Moustache), Michel Hazanavicius (OSS 117) and Philippe Faucon (The Betrayal).

The Rétro will look at the work of Christian Vincent by showing five of his films during the course of the festival. The director will travel to the UK for the first time to present his latest film Four Stars and will give Masterclasses in three cities: Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.

Cinéma Junior devoted to providing films suitable for a young audience, many of them attending in school groups, will feature two films: A Year In My Life by Daniel Duval and The Aeroplane by Cédric Kahn.

For the full festival programme head to the site and hit Timetable, that's all you'll need to find some great French Films over the next week.