ATHENS, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Ermou Street pedestrian zone, one of the most famous shopping streets of Athens, the capital of Greece, turned into an open-air cinema on Thursday, for the second screening of the 8th Athens Open Air Film Festival.

The audience had the chance to watch the film Strictly Ballroom (1992) by Australian film-maker Baz Luhrmann.

The film-loving summer date returns with a variety of screenings from June to August, while for the first time this year on Saturday, June 30 there will be a special cinema screening at the Little Theater of Ancient Epidaurus of Elektra, directed by Mihalis Kakogiannis.

Synonymous with the summer escape in the city, the festival attracts the audience with free admissions in archaeological sites, gorges, squares, terraces, beaches and some of the most beautiful museums and sites of Athens.

The program of this year includes 18 classic films, many of which constitute literary adaptations serving the big screen.

The festival kicked off in the Byzantine and Christian Museum on June 4 with "The Bridges of Madison," Clint Eastwood's masterful romance, and ends on Aug. 29 with the screening Lord of the Flies (1963) by Peter Brook on the Garden of the Numismatic Museum of Athens.

"The Athens Open Air Film Festival is a gesture of love towards cinema and our city. An alternative and disarmingly beautiful way to watch films, while on the same time an opportunity to face Athens like you have never seen or imagined it before," the Artistic Director of the Festival, Loukas Katsikas, said in a welcome note.

"A kind of cultural tourism aiming to introduce to the capital's visitors and residents a side of the city which is as much unexpected and photogenic as it is incurably film-loving," he added.

The festival is organized in collaboration with the City of Athens Cultural, Sport and Youth Organization.