PLANS to make Malvern into a hub for French cinema has attracted high praise, with good ticket sales reported for the first weekend of movies later this month.

The Coach House Theatre in Grange Road was last month named a regional centre for films form across the channel by the Institut Francais du Royaume Uni.

The move has been praised by the French Consul in Birmingham, M Robert Mille, who said: “What a wonderful initiative! I rushed to tell the Cultural Attache at the French Embassy, who had recently talked about the value of such ideas.”

And Mal Salisbury, the economic development officer at Malvern Hills District Council, said: "Well done putting this together. It looks a really good development with lots of potential benefits for Malvern.”

Graham Dimmock, president of Malvern Twinning Association, saud: “What a great idea. It gives the many local people who love French cinema the chance to enjoy French films without having to travel long distances to do so.

Pam Stanier, who chairs Malvern U3A, said “French cinema is really special, and I welcome being able to see more of it in proper cinema conditions.”

And film fan Gerald Dawe of Colwall said it is “absolutely marvellous that we will be able to see French films in Malvern”.

The Coach House hopes the weekend, on November 19-20, will be a sell-out, and some films are already over half fully booked.

The films showing on the Saturday are Louis Malle’s award-winning Au Revoir les Enfants, Claude Chabrol’s version of Madame Bovary, starring Isabelle Huppert, and Le Diner des Cons, a farce directed by Francis Veber.

On Sunday, the line-up is Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie, Le Dernier Metro, directed by Francois Truffaut, and the fast-moving adventure Le Bossu directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Daniel Auteuil.

For more details and tickets, contact Malvern Theatres box office on 01684 892277 or malvern-theatres.co.uk.

Future plans are for three weekends of this kind per year plus one film a month. The first one-off will be on January 15, and the next Weekend will be March 18-19.