Lone Scherfig’s An Education and Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces will bookend the 15th Athens International Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday (September 16).

The films are part of a 151-strong line-up across eleven different sections and four tributes, with 11 films in its international competition (see below).

The European Youth Jury, made up of cinema-goers aged between 18-25 years old from across Europe, will judge the Golden Athena for best film; meanwhile a second Golden Athena will be handed out for the festival’s section dedicated to music documentaries.

Contenders include Pedro Costa’s Don’t Change Anything, Ulrik Wivel’s Roskilde and Mandy Stein’s Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB. It will be judged by a five-member international jury including Screen International assistant editor, reviews Fionnuala Halligan, and French cult weekly Les Inrockuptibles’ Geraldine Sarratia.

For the first time this year, Athens will have competition dedicated to local films. There will be three awards for first film and best new actor and actress, which will be decided by an 11-member jury made up of local film executives and critics. It is open to any local production released in the past 12 months.

The new competition comes as a group of directors and producers have pledged to boycott the State Cinema Awards and November’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and could be seen as a bid to fill the gap. There are eight national premieres at the festival including festival heavy hitters George Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, which scooped awards in Un Certain Regard at this year’s Cannes, Filippos Tsitos’ Plato’s Academy, which won awards at Locarno.

The Premieres and Panorama sections, which will feature films celebrated and awarded at international festivals over the past year, will include Michael Haneke’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon, Rachid Bouchareb’s London River, starring Sotigui Kouyate, who won best actor at Berlin, Andrea Arnold’s Cannes awarded Fish Tank, Elia Suleiman’s The Time That Remains, Carlos Cuaron’s Rudo Y Cursi starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.

Meanwhile, Peter Greenaway will be at the festival to introduce his latest Rembrant’s J’accuse, and give a talk on the relation between painting and cinema and a masterclass. The festival will also pay tribute to cult Japanese director Sion Sono and Danish film-maker Jorgen Leth.

International competition line up:

Moon, Duncan Jones (UK)

Ander, Robert Caston (Spain)

The Father Of My Children (Le Pere De Mes Enfants), Mia Hansen Love (France)

Mary And Max, Adam Elliot (Australia)

Lymelife, Derrick Martini (USA)

High Life, Garry Yates (Canada)

City Of Life And Death, Lu Chuan (China)

Nothing Personal(Rien De Personnel), Mathias Gokalp (France)

The Girl (Flickan), Fredrik Edfeldt (Sweden)

In The Loop, Armando Iannucci (UK)

Breaking Upwards, Daryl Wein (USA)