This many everlasting love stories at once is a festival first.

As many as seven films from the older and newer classics will be screened on 4 August in the large open-air cinema on Tartu Town Hall Square – the occasion being the festival's 20th anniversary.

A. Le Coq, Estonia's oldest beverage producer, will help to bring the exclusive programme to the audience.

"A. Le Coq has shown in more than two hundred years of business that continuity is a balance of innovation and tradition. Tartuff is only 20 years old and we certainly have a lot to learn. On the occasion of this anniversary, the bearer of tradition comes to our aid and together we have selected films that take us back in time to show the birth, evolution and history of films about love," says festival director Johan Kudu.

The programme includes Charles Chaplin's "The Gold Rush", Michael Curtize's "Casablanca", Jacques Demy's "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", Claude Lelouch's "A Man and A Woman", David Lynch's "Wild at Heart", Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" and Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" – all from 1925-1996.

A total of 12 films will be screened on the open-air screen at Tartu Town Hall Square from August 4-9, along with five new films, in addition to the classics, which will be announced in the second half of July. The documentary and children's programme will be screened again at the Tartu Elektriteater.

Traditionally, all screenings are FREE of charge.

The festival is presented by Elisa and the City of Tartu.

Photo: Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage in "Wild at Heart"