Faye Dunaway, John Boorman, Michael Haneke, Stanley Kwan and Mohsen Makhmalbaf are amongst the guests attending this month's Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

The event, presided over by celebrated film-maker Theo Angelopoulos, kicks off with Jacques Rivette's Va Savoir on November 9. Peter Cattaneo's Lucky Break closes proceedings on November 18.

Dunaway is to accompany director Jerry Schatzberg for a screening of 1970's Puzzle Of A Downfall Child, in which she plays a fashion model undergoing an existential crisis.

The festival's main retrospective is dedicated to Boorman, who also serves as president of the international jury. World premieres in the international competition include Christos Dimas' local title The Cistern, a coming of age drama set in Athens during the 70s, and Aliki Danezi-Knutsen's Bar, from Cyprus, Greece and Uruguay.

The competition has the European premieres of John Gianvito's US title The Mad Songs Of Fernanda Hussein and Christos Georgiou's Under The Stars, from Cyprus, the UK and Greece. Also competing are Cristi Puiu's Stuff And Dough, from Romania, Srdan Golubovic's Yugoslavian title Absolute Hundred and Dover Koshashvili's Israeli-French production Late Marriage. Kenny Glenaan's Gas Attack is from the UK, with Alain Gomis' As A Man and Marie Vermillard's Imago representing France.

Rounding out the competition are Algerian director Fatmir Koci's Tirana Year Zero, Bread And Milk, by Slovenia's Jan Cvitkovic, Hsiao Ya-Chuan's Mirror Image, from Taiwan, and Kazim Oz's The Photograph, from Turkey. Representing Italy is Sailing Home, by Vincenzo Marra, while Japan has Eiji Okuda's An Adolescent.

Other sections include the Balkan Survey and new cinema from Argentina and France. Overseas titles getting a Greek airing range from David Lynch's Mulholland Drive to Makhmalbaf's Taliban story Kandahar.