The most memorable moviegoing experience of my life was on a pebble beach on the French Riviera.

It was a Friday the 13th, and the Cannes Film Festival was presenting a mystery movie under the stars. As the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea and royal yachts bobbed in the harbor, a DJ spun moody vinyl.

In my fractured French, I asked him to identify a particular soundtrack tune, and he shouted, "A Patch of Blue." That star-crossed love story starring Sidney Poitier was the first movie I ever saw at a drive-in. I figured the night couldn't get any better.

But then the DJ cut the music and introduced the special guest who would be presenting his mystery movie: "Monsieur Gorge Romero and 'Night of Ze Living Dead!'"

Maybe there are other countries where George Romero is hailed as a genius; but surely the food's not as good, and the conversation afterward isn't as lively.

For the next week, there ought to be plenty of lively conversation in the cafes of the Delmar Loop after screenings of "Breathless" at the Tivoli. Jean-Luc Godard's masterpiece has been digitally restored and rereleased for its 50th anniversary — the same year that Godard is being awarded a lifetime-achievement Oscar.

When the beautifully black-and-white "Breathless" opened in 1960, with Jean-Paul Belmondo as the tres-cool car thief and Jean Seberg as his American moll, it galvanized filmgoers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hollywood was in the doldrums, cranking out musicals and biblical epics to compete with TV. The "new wave" of French cinema, led by critics-turned-directors such as Godard and Francois Truffaut, had rediscovered the pleasures of low-budget Hollywood genres and revived them with a run-and-gun editing style that Hollywood rebels would reappropriate in movies like "Bonnie and Clyde."

Next weekend, the second annual French Film Festival at Washington University spotlights two great directors: Jacques Tati and Jean Renoir.

The fest, in the university's Brown Hall, presents Tati's pseudo-silent vacation farce "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" on Sept. 17 and his modern-times satire "Playtime" on Sept. 18. The sensualist Renoir is represented by his version of the Dr. Jekyll fable, "The Doctor's Horrible Experiment," on Sept. 18 and his exuberant musical "French Cancan" on Sept. 19.

Other directors featured at the fest will include Jacques Rivette, Catherine Breillat and Oliver Assayas.

For ticket information and a complete schedule, visit cinemastlouis.org/frenchfest.html.