So, the holidays are over and you can't figure out what to do? Not to worry, we've been busy these last few days at LifeStyle picking out the best things to see and do this week. First of all, if you haven't seen "Mulholland Drive," it's time. Next, why don't you take advantage of spring by getting out of the city - see our guide to Tula . Plus much more on every page...
- Martha Mercer, LifeStyle editor, martham@lstyle.ru.

Last season's theater best

This year's major theatrical event - the Eighth Golden Mask festival - will be running in Moscow from March 28 to April 14 and highlighting the past season's best works, including drama, opera, operetta, ballet, puppet shows and modern dance.

The events will culminate on April 15, when the Bolshoi Theater will host the Golden Mask awards ceremony.

Among the many productions nominated, we would like to mark Lev Dodin's (St. Petersburg) adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull." The production was a discovery at the Third International Theater Olympiad, which was held in Moscow last summer. Those who haven't seen the play shouldn't miss the chance to catch it now. It will be showing in the Vsevolod Meyerhold Center on April 5-7 at 7 p.m.

Simultaneously with the festival's main program, an Alfa Bank-sponsored show, "The Russian Case," will be running from April 10-15, showing plays that were featured in other seasons.

Fete de la Francophonie

Bringing attention to cultural achievements in French-speaking countries, Fete de la Francophonie will be held in Moscow for the second time. The festival will include many interesting events, with the most exciting ones taking place in the Dom cultural center and the Muzei Kino movie theater. At the Dom, the festival will be running March 23-24 at 7:30 p.m. The first day will feature a program from the French-speaking countries of Africa, including folk ensembles from Burundi and Tunisia. Europe is featured on the second day, with the Chef Menteur troupe performing songs based on the poems of Daniil Kharms, and Russian rock star Alexander F. Sklyar performing with Masha de Valucoff.

Muzei Kino, as usual, has prepared an eventful and interesting program that will run from March 21 until the end of the month. Among the dozen movies of various genres, deserving special mention is the drama by Vietnamese director Nhat Minh Dang, "La saison des Goyaves" (The Season of Guavas), which has been noted at a number of film festivals, including Locarno and Rotterdam.

Gay movies

Movies are an important element of gay culture: However, until now, there had been nowhere in Moscow to see gay movies. Fortunately, the gay club Tsentralnaya Stantsiya has decided to organize a retrospective of gay, lesbian and transvestite films that will run until the end of the month. Films will be shown every day at 8 p.m. Of the films to be shown, we would like to note Thom Fitzerald's "The Hanging Garden" and Wolfram Witt's "Coming Out." The films were selected with the stipulation that the characters just be ordinary people facing ordinary problems, such as finding a partner, coming out about their homosexuality, forming gay families and dealing with faithfulness and adultery. The festival's organizers hope to attract an intellectual audience of all ages and sexual orientations. If the festival proves a success, it will be become a regular event.