EuroFest Spotlights Thome Trilogy on Opening Weekend : Movies: ‘Forms of Love’ is among 17 new foreign films that will be shown Friday through June 21 at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills.

German filmmaker Rudolf Thome’s witty and original “Forms of Love” trilogy is the key attraction in the opening weekend of the seventh American Film Institute European Community Film Festival. As usual, this year’s EuroFest--which will present 17 new films Friday through June 21 at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills--is highly varied in style, subject and quality, with some of its hottest tickets not available for preview.

It’s not surprising to learn that Thome is an admirer of Eric Rohmer, for he shares with the French filmmaker an intimate, conversational style and an amused yet compassionate view of the often quirky relationships between men and women. But Thome is his own man, sending up German seriousness, poking fun at the male dream of being surrounded by adoring, devoted women and frankly drawing from classic fairy tales for his plots. He has in Adriana Altaras an extraordinary star-actress who, in her her wit and uninhibited sexuality, brings to mind Sonia Braga.

In “The Microscope” (Sunday, 3 p.m.), she plays a woman as eager to have a child with her demurring lover (Wladimir Weigl), who is ironically obsessed with aquariums, fish being a symbol of fertility. “The Philosopher” (Sunday, 6:30 p.m.), a romantic fantasy as airy as it is hilarious, is the best of the trilogy. This time Altaras plays one of three stunning women--the Three Graces of Greek mythology, quite literally--roommates and partners in a chic clothing store who take in tow a virginal, very tall, pale and skinny 30-year-old philosopher (Johannes Herschmann, an inspired comedian), whose fate seems to good to be true.

“Seven Women” (Sunday, 8:30 p.m.) isn’t as satisfying as the first two but certainly has its moments. This time Herschmann is a young man whose recently deceased--and very shady--rich banker father is playing dangerous games from beyond the grave, requiring, it would seem, the protection of Altaras and her four sisters, not to mention her mother and grandmother!

Paul Leduc’s “Barroco,” which opens the festival Friday evening at 7:15, is an ambitious, rambling and finally tedious and elusive journey through Latin America’s barbarous colonial era, which is evoked as a kind of nonstop opera-pageant. Some of the musical sequences are dazzling, but since Leduc (best known for his 1973 “Reed: Insurgent Mexico” and the 1985 “Frida”) never identifies anyone, the film is all but impossible to follow and therefore only intermittently involving.

You also wish that Claire Denis, in her infectious documentary “No Man Run” (Friday, 9:30 p.m.) had identified the five wonderful musicians from Cameroon who make up Les Tetes Brulees (The Burned-Out Heads) and whom Denis--director of “Chocolat”--followed on their first tour of France. Even though we would like to know better these five young men, easy-going and hard-working, and also their itinerary, “No Man Run” succeeds very well as a concert film, so rich, dynamic and seductive is the group’s music.

The word is that “The Witches” (Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m.) is terrific. With Anjelica Huston and Mai Zetterling, it’s a children’s adventure adapted from the Roald Dahl novel, directed by Nicolas Roeg with the late Jim Henson serving as executive producer. Far from terrific is Belgian filmmaker Stijn Coninx’s talky, tiresome comedy “Koko Flanel” (Saturday, 3 p.m.), which stars Urbanus, a Belgian Gene Wilder, as an eccentric, wistful itinerant birdhouse maker who winds up a top model and fashion trend-setter.

Also unavailable for preview, France’s “Follow that Plane” (Saturday, 6:30 p.m.) is described as a screwball comedy and stars Lambert Wilson as a timid computer specialist who becomes a prime suspect in a bank robbery.

A touch of the outrageous is always welcome in a film festival, but stylish, ever-diabolical Italian horrormeister Dario Argento’s “Opera” (Saturday, 8:45 p.m.), while undeniably entertaining, winds up overwhelming its suspense with morbidity. Essentially, it’s the latest variation on “Phantom of the Opera,” in which a young understudy (Cristina Marsillach), who triumphs at La Scala in Verdi’s “Macbeth,” is terrorized by a truly twisted homicidal maniac. For Fine Arts Theater recorded information: (213) 652-1330; AFI EuroFest: (213) 856-7704.