TV movies and documentaries by Charles Sturridge (Shackleton), Danny Boyle (Vacuuming Completely Nude In Paradise), Christian Frei (War Photographer) and Coco Schrijber (First Kill) are among 20 national and international premieres selected from more than 600 entries for the 12th International TV & Film Festival Cologne (June 14-21) as part of the medienforum.nrw's Cologne Conference.

The British presence in this year's festival is particularly strong with two entries in the Top Ten Fiction category and five in the Top Ten Non-Fiction lineup, which is only fitting given that the UK is medienforum.nrw's partner country for the 2002 edition.

The films selected for the Top Ten Fiction section will be competing against each other for the Euros 5,000 TV Spielfilm Award:

24 - TV series - (US)
Band Of Brothers - miniseries - dir: Phil Alden Robinson (USA)
Himmelreich Auf Erden (Heaven On Earth) - TV movie - dir: Torsten C. Fischer (Germany)
Joutilaat - The Idle Ones - TV movie - dir: Susanna Helke (Finland)
Normal People - TV movie - dir: Oleg Novkovic (Yugoslavia)
Sexes Tres Opposes - TV movie - dir: Eric Assous (France)
Shackleton - TV movie - dir: Charles Sturridge (UK)
Six Feet Under - TV series - dir: Alan Ball (USA)
The Fifth Woman - miniseries - dir: Birger Larsen (Sweden/Germany)
Vacuuming Completely Nude In Paradise - TV movie - dir: Danny Boyle (UK)

Meanwhile, the films selected for the Top Ten Non Fiction will be in the running for the Euros 5,000 Phoenix Prize :

ASH Worldwide Suicide - documentary - dir: Walter Stokman (Netherlands)
Casting - documentary - dir: Emmanuel Finkiel (France)
First Kill - documentary - dir: Coco Schrijber (Netherlands)
Hollywood Inc. - documentary - dir: Philip Day (UK)
Kinky Friedman - Proud To Be An Asshole From El Paso - documentary - dir: Simone de Vries (Netherlands)
Pop Idol - entertainment series - dir: Jonathan Bullen (UK)
Richard Burton - documentary - dir: Paul Tilzey (UK)
Soldat - documentary - dir: Paul Jenkins (UK)
Trips Money Can't Buy With Ewan McGregor - entertainment - dir: Ben Southwell (UK)
War Photographer - documentary - dir: Christian Frei (Switzerland)

In addition, the Cologne Conference's week of screenings and seminars will include a retrospective dedicated this year to the German screenwriter Wolfgang Menge with screenings of such award-winning TV plays as Die Dubrow-Krise (1969), Das Millionenspiel (1970) and Smog (1973).