Denmark's 17th edition of the NATfilm whichopens on Friday, (24 March- 9 April) will be showing a record number of 165 moviesfrom around the world. This audience festival attracts a good number of peoplewith ticket sales usually around the 40,000 mark with screenings in Copenhagen,Odense, Århus and Aalborg and Malmö in Sweden.

Besides early screenings of Pernille FischerChristensens A Soap NATfilm are screeningthe world premiere of Christoffer Boe's new feature, Offscreen. Boe broke through with Reconstruction winning theCamera d'or in Cannes and continued his original path with last year's Allegro.His new movie stars Nicolas Bro who was among Screens' New Stars of Europe afew months back. Bro is filming himself in a daring "where does the facts endand the fiction begin" piece about a love gone wrong.

Festival organisers Kim Foss and AndreasSteinman received an honorary Bodil (Danish film critics awards) earlier thisyear for increasing the profile and reputation of the festival over the years.Among the main focal points of this year's programme is a tribute to Bollywood starRani Mukerji and Peter Lorre and the selection of films on view under thefollowing banners: Canadian Independents, New Danish Screen, Latin Neats andDown Under the Australian offering, among other divisions. The NATfilm foundationis also behind the Copenhagen Dox festival running their fourth edition inNovember this year.

On the opening night, March 23 the NatsværmerAward, is given to one or more young Danish film talents. Other awards include TV5'sCritics' Award, for which nine films from the programme have been selected -all first or second films from the participating directors - and will be judgedby an international critics jury. TV5's Critics' Award is a $4,193 (25.000 DKK)award, which will be presented to the director of the winning film at theClosing Gala. Also revealed on the closing night is the winner of the NatFilmAudience Award. In order to qualify a film must have no prior distribution dealfor Denmark and stands to win $20,967 (125.000 DKK) earmarked for Danish importand distribution of the winning film and will also be broadcasted on Danishtelevision at a later stage.