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With around 100 movies from across the globe showing at the World Film Festival of Bangkok, choosing the ones to see can be a bit daunting. For a primer on the eclectic selection, we asked festival programmer Pathompong Manakitsomboon to give us a list of 10 titles he doesn't want to miss. Here it is, in inverse order of preference.

10. The Inheritors

Photographer-turned-director Eugenio Polgovsky gives this unblinking look at the hard-scrabble realities of the Mexican countryside, where child labourers toil in hazardous conditions. Tomorrow at 9pm and on Wednesday at 7pm

9. CalArts Shorts: Portrait Documentaries from Women's Perspective

Sompot Chidgasornpongse, a student at the California Institute of the Arts, curates this selection of five short experimental documentaries by female filmmakers. Bubbling up are tales of a deaf-mute grandfather, hair salons in Ghana and eight 80-something women who were contemporary dancers in the 1960s. Thursday at 9.45pm and November 14 at 4

8. To Die Like a Man

An ageing transsexual cabaret star in Lisbon is under pressure from her young boyfriend to finally have that sex-change operation - before it's too late. Tomorrow at 3.30 and Sunday at 6

7. Face

The latest feature from Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang - tonight he receives the festival's Lotus Award for cinematic achievement - is a surreal look at a movie being shot in Paris' Louvre museum and the problems that arise during the production. Tsai's regular star Lee Kang-sheng plays the director, with a French cast that includes Fanny Ardant, Jean-Pierre Leaud and Laetitia Casta. Tomorrow at 9pm and Monday at 1.15

6. The Korean Wedding Chest

Tapping into the trend for all things Korean is German director Ulrike Ottinger, whose documentary examines old and new wedding customs, and the professional guardians of the ancient rites who fuss over the tiniest details. Tuesday at 1 and Thursday at 3.30

5. Father of My Children

A film producer struggles to balance his family life with his increasingly demanding job. But too many productions, too many risks and too many debts take their toll. Despair looms. Wednesday at 8.15pm and November 13 at 1.15

4. Gulabi Talkies

Not every movie that comes out of India is a Bollywood song-and-dance number. From the Kannada-language Sandalwood industry comes this comedy that looks at mass media and its effect on a rural village. Umashree won best actress at the National Film Awards for her portrayal of a middle-aged woman whose life changes when she gets her village's first satellite TV. It's by veteran director Girish Kasaravalli. November 13 at 7 and November 14 at 1.30

3. The Rat Herb

An encounter between a man and a woman in a cemetery continues with the promise of eternal love that is filled with surreal eroticism that could only come from veteran Brazilian director Júlio Bressane. Sunday at 8.45pm and Tuesday at 11am

2. Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000

Alain Tanner, the subject of the festival's Retrospective, directed this 1976 classic drama about a group of friends who strive to keep the flames of radicalism burning in the years following the revolutions that swept Europe in 1968. Their bonds are strengthened by the birth of a child named Jonah. Sunday at 3.20 and Wednesday at 11am

1. Mundane History

The festival's opening film is the debut feature by indie Thai director Anocha "Mai" Suwichakornpong, and it arrives in Bangkok after a celebrated premiere at the Pusan festival last month. This family drama is about a paralysed young man, his distant father, a male nurse hired to care for the son and the clan's once-grand estate. Controversial for its nudity and sex, there are allegories to Thai society in the characters. Tonight at 8 (by invitation only) and Thursday at 9.45pm

 >> The World Film Festival of Bangkok runs until November 15 at Paragon Cineplex.

>> Shows start at 11 daily.

>> Tickets are Bt100 (Bt50 for students.

 >> On the Internet: www.WorldFilmBKK.com.