Nestling in a deck-chair, sipping on a cocktail or from a flask of home brew and finding yourself laughing out loud with a couple of hundred other people is just the tonic for a balmy summer evening.

Especially if it's in an original location in the dead of night. In amongst the tall wind turbines in Kortrijk from 20.00 on 11 July to 8.00 the next morning, there's a special gathering of concerts, performances, karaoke, DJs and two all-night bars set up in shipping containers - as well as some open air cinema.

The Kortrijk Congé festival will be showing Planet Terror, a modern-day zombie film with a plethora of special effects on an enormous outdoor screen at 2.45 in the morning. If you survive both the zombies and the hour, you can welcome the sunrise with a dawn chorus from Icelandic composer Johann Jóhannsson and 30 of the strings from the Kortrijk Symphony Orchestra.

But all of that actually follows a day of cinema in Kortrijk: catch Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in the gender-bending 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot or the quirky 2007 teen pregnancy flick Juno after a day of picnicking, BBQs, DJs and general merry-making earlier in the day on 11 July at the city's Summerscreen festival.

When the going gets really hot, Belgians head for the coast. The special screen on the beach at Zeebrugge every Thursday in July allows films to be shown in daylight, so it's perfect for keeping the kids occupied while you snooze in the sun (with your factor 30 on of course). Kids flicks are scheduled at 14.30 and 16.30, while the 20.00 screening is slightly more adult, with Vicky Cristina Barcelona on 16 July and Slumdog MillionaireIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on 23 July. If you have to, you can even watch on 30 July.

But you needn't be entirely exposed to the elements. In Flanders, Mechelen's Sportpark de Nekker will host Drive-In Movies on Friday and Saturday nights, beginning on 24 July with the New York subway highjacking thriller The Taking of Pelham 123 before its general release and closing with Ice Age 3 on 15 August. Summer concerts before the screenings will get you in the mood no matter how hard your working week has been, and you can always find some extra solace at the cocktail stand if you've forgotten your own strawberry Martinis at home.

Inland, meanwhile, Antwerp returns the popular sunset screenings on the banks of the River Scheldt from Wednesdays to Sundays in August, as part of its Summer of Antwerp festival. The programme opens with Juno on 5 August and includes Belgian favourites Dagen zonder lief (With Friends Like These) and Le Silence de Lorna as well as the excellent animation about the Iranian revolution, Persepolis.

Meanwhile, in its 16th year, the Klinkers Festival in Bruges will be offering up an eclectic range of world music bands playing in some of the most ancient parts of the city, as well as two open-air screenings in the beautiful surrounds of the Astridpark. A tale of a boyhood rivalry that lasts a lifetime, the 1991 Belgian film Totos les héros will show on 27 July, while the stunning 2007 historical epic Mongol about the life of Genghis Khan will screen the following day.

Sadly, there will be no screenings at the old Tongeren prison in Limburg province this year. The disused prison locked its doors for the last time in November 2008. But my favourite in the capital, the PleinOPENAir film and music festival hosted by the volunteers of the Nova independent cinema, is still going strong.

Although the programme hasn't quite been finalised, screenings will take place at a different sites in Brussels each weekend from 24 July until 9 August. Just check the Nova Cinema website closer to the date for details. Last year, watching cult films, sipping fresh fruit smoothies and discovering the delights of electro-burlesque music in the cornfields of Neerpede in Anderlecht as stars came out was simply magical.

Find an outdoor screen near you

Kortrijk Congé: www.kortrijkconge.be
Drive-In Movies Mechelen: www.utopolis.be
Film op het strand, Zeebrugge: www.bruggeplus.be
Zomer van Antwerpen: www.zomervanantwerpen.be
Summerscreen, Kortrijk: www.summerscreen.be
Klinkers, Bruges: www.klinkers-brugge.be
PleinOPENAir: www.nova-cinema.org