Hotshot UK director Stephen Daldry will be honoured as international film-maker of the year at this year's Palm Springs International Film Festival during the festival's gala ceremony on Saturday (Jan 11).

Daldry's second film The Hours, which was nominated for seven Golden Globes last month, will be screened in Palm Springs in the afternoon followed by a Q&A with Daldry, who will join other honorees at the evening gala including fellow Brits Stephen Frears, who will also receive an international film-maker of the year award, and Christopher Nolan, who will receive the Visionary Film-maker Award.

Nolan will participate in an on-stage conversation on Jan 16 following a screening of his latest picture Insomnia. His earlier films Following and Memento will also be screened.

The 14th Palm Springs International Film Festival begins on Thursday with the North American premiere of Franco Zeffirelli's Callas Forever and runs through to Monday Jan 20

The full Palm Springs lineup, unveiled late last year by festival executive director Mitch Levine and director of programming Jennifer Stark, includes 200 pictures, among them 45 of the 54 submissions for the best foreign language film Academy Award. They include Zhang Yimou's Hero (China), Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio (original Italian version), Piotr Traskalski's Edi (Poland), Lukas Moodysson's Lilya 4-Ever (Sweden), Aki Kaurismaki's The Man Without A Past (Finland) and Fernando Leon de Aranoa's Mondays In The Sun.

Other high-profile films in the festival include Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, Peter Mullan's The Magdalene Sisters, Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen and Roman Polanski's The Pianist.

Among the other international film-makers currently scheduled to attend Palm Springs are Fernando Mereilles (City Of God), Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Devdas), Carlos Carrera (The Crime Of Father Amaro) and Fernando Leon De Aranoa (Mondays In The Sun).