Film festivals have spread to cities around the world like mushrooms dotting the woods after a rainy day. There are so many that they rarely fit the purpose of putting a destination on the map anymore.

Obviously, there are festivals for all kind of cinema too - documentaries, experimental, regional, erotic, science fiction, you name it, and that may helps. It helps because the rarest or the more niche the kind of cinema showed is, the better to single out a city.

Attending a film festival is always a good excuse for visiting a city but, if you concentrate too much on the movies you miss out on what the place has to offer.

What happen then, when the place itself becomes part of the experience? Forget about cities and conventional theatres and imagine an event where films and place blend into a whole new realm for the senses. Where the programmed movies are so important as the backdrop they are set against. Here are two of the most exotic locations for a film festival:

Film on the Rocks Festival - Koh Yao Noi, Thailand

This film festival is not only located in one of the most exotic destinations ever - a small island off Phuket in Thailand - but it's also a very exclusive event. Recently celebrated on the second week of March at the dazzling Six Senses resort on Koh Yai Noi, the Film on the Rocks has been described as "not quite a festival but a mind orgy," by film director and co-curator Apichatpong Weerasethakul - the other mastermind behind the project is British actor Tilda Swinton.

Among the delicious eccentricities with which the festival delighted its select audience on this year's first edition was the Archipelago Cinema, a floating auditorium in the middle of a lagoon where a restored copy of Cecil Hepworth's 1903 Alice in Wonderland was screened.

Koh Yao Noi can be accessed from both Phuket airport and Krabi airport.

Amazonas Film Festival - Manaus, Brazil

Right in the heart of the Amazon river is Manaus, a two-million people city with one of the most charismatic film festivals in South America, the Annual Amazonas which celebrated its 8th edition on November 2011.

One of the festival's highlights was Xingu, a film by Cao Hamburger about the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Fitzcarraldo, Werner Herzog's classic jungle epic feature was also chosen to be shown on the city's old opera house built in 1896.

The Aeroporto Internacional Eduardo Gomes is 13km north of the city centre, but for a more authentic experience Manaus should be accessed by river. Large passenger boats arrive and depart at the Estação Hidroviária de Manaus.