Cubans are packing several Havana movie theaters as the 12th French Film Festival got underway in the Cuban capital to pay tribute to filmmaker Francois Truffaut.

The festival, which will extend until May 25th, kicked off in Havana’s Charles Chaplin Theater with the premier of the French movie Comme des Frères (Like Brothers). The cultural event’s program includes the screening of sixteen movies: ten fiction films, two animated films and four documentaries which have won thirty nominations or Cesar Awards (the top film prize in French Cinema).

A delegation of artists, producers and movie experts from that European country is on hand at the gathering, including Pierre Niney, François-Xavier Demaison, Hugo Gélin, Ruben Alves, Simon Brook, René Bonnell, and festival founder Christophe Barratier.

Les Quatre Cents Coups from 1959; Jules et Jim from 1962; Le Dernier Métro from 1980 and Vivement Dimanche from 1983, are the movies that will be screened as part of a retrospective dedicated to one of the forefathers of the “New Wave Movement” in France, director Francois Truffaut, who died in October, 1984 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Havana’s Charles Chaplin, Riviera, 23 y 12 and Multicine Infanta movie theaters are open to French film lovers.