The world premiere of Robert Towne's romance Ask The Dust starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayekwill open the 21st Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF), whichruns from Feb 2-12.

The festival will close with Jason Reitman's tobacco industrysatire Thank You For Smoking starring Aaron Eckhart and Maria Bello, and the centerpiece galascreening is the world premiere of Mike Binder's comedy-drama Man About Town, which stars Ben Affleck, Bai Ling andRebecca Romijn.

The festival features an impressive 32 world premieres and 12 USpremieres in its most prestigious line-up in history.

Sidebars include the nature strand The Reel Nature, Asian genresection Cultasian, extreme sports strand To The Maxxx, Spanish and LatinAmerican programme Latino Cinemedia, and a new strand, The French Connection.

For moreinformation visit the official website at www.sbfilmfestival.org.