The Leiden International Film Festival takes place from 1-10 November in Leiden, the Netherlands and focuses this year on an American Indie Competition. Last edition’s winner of LIFF was ‘Safety Not Guaranteed‘, a hilarious yet dramatic comedy starring Aubrey Plaza and New Girl’s Jake Johnson. Prior to the film festival, there is a ‘Surprising Shopping Weekend’ which will be organized in the city centre of Leiden during the weekend of 26-27 October. During this event, visitors will come across film stars, famous quotes hanging in stores, and unexpected instances of film and photography.

Part of this weekend will be the Bakkie Bike Cinema, a unique theatrical mobile cinema built on top of a vintage cargo bike (bakfiets in Dutch). The usherettes welcome the cinema visitors and while they recline to view a piece of film history, the usherettes put on one of their intermission shows for the next guests. Bakkie Bike Cinema is more than just watching a film, it’s entertainment from the queue to The End! On 26th October the bike can be found in Haarlemmerstraat and the next day at Aalmarkt.

Then there is TV Wartburg, which is the smallest mobile open air cinema in the Netherlands and which pops up at festivals and other events to entertain its visitors with film, music and vintage computer games in 3D. Both indoor and outdoor, all of the day and all of the night. TV Wartburg brings it together, not at home but in open air or in a nearly impossible place. The Wartburg is the tiniest Wartburg car in the world; sawn in half and narrowed to 120cm. It runs and drives on batteries, which makes it environmentally friendly due to zero CO2 emissions. Find it at Stadhuisplein on Sunday 27th October!

Next to these, there is the possibility to meet legendary film characters in the stores of Leiden, from Shrek buying bread to Charlie Chaplin shopping for clothes. These stores will also hang famous film quotes in their display windows, but they will be translated into Dutch making them harder to decipher. If you do succeed though, you receive a discount on your purchases. Isn’t that an offer you can’t refuse? (wink wink)

The complete programme for this extraordinary weekend can be found at Leiden.nl and more info and tickets for the Leiden International Film Festival here.