Eighteen new feature films will compete for the Golden Reel Award at the 40th Hungarian Film Week (January 27-February 3) Budapest.

The competition titles were selected by a committee of Hungarian film professionals from among 26 features completed in the last 12 months.

The competition features 13 world premieres, including I'm Not Your Friend, Gyorgi Palfi's highly-anticipated follow up to Taxidermy, which won awards in Budapest, Cottbus and Cluj in 2006.

Palfi describes the new film as an exercise in improvisation on the part his non-professional actors, his crew and himself. It is produced by Eurofilm Studio, which also produced Taxidermiy.

Pater Sparrow's 1, also screening in world premiere, centers around a mystery involving a book which describes what happens to the whole of humanity in the space of a minute.

The film is an adaptation of the story One Human Minute by Polish science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, who also wrote the novel Solaris.

The competition further includes several successful features released in 2008: Tamas Sas's comedy 9 And 1/2 Dates; Herendi Gabor's A Kind Of America 2; and Krisztina Goda's new film Chameleon.

In a move that provides the festival with nearly twice as many seats as in previous years, the 40th anniversary edition relocates from the Millennium Theatre and Palace Cinema Mammut multiplex to four new locations in the Hungarian capital.

The locations are: the Budapest Congress and World Trade Centre; Palace Cinemas Mom Park; Urania National Film Palace; and the Bem arthouse cinema.

Cinematographer and producer Emil Novak takes over as artistic director of this year's festival. Novak is also production executive at the Stern Film Studio and Media Centre in Budapest.

Altogether 101 features, shorts, documentaries and other films will compete in five categories.

Further announcements regarding the opening film, juries and sidebar programs are forthcoming.

40th Hungarian Film Week

Golden Reel Feature Film Competition

1 (directed. Pater Sparrow) World Premiere

9 And 1/2 Dates (dir. Tamas Sas)

Chameleon (dir. Krisztina Goda)

Father's Acre (dir. Viktor Oszkar Nagy) WP

Fluke (dir. Tamas Kemenyffy)

Intimate Headshot (dir. Peter Szajki), WP

I'm Not Your Friend (dir. Gyorgy Palfi) WP

Juliette (dir. Andras Szirtes) WP

A Kind Of America 2 (dir. Herendi Gabor)

Lost Times (dir. Aron Matyassy) WP

Paper Planes (dir. Simon Szabo) WP

Pinprick (dir. Daniel Young) WP

Prank (dir. Peter Gardos) WP

Prima Primavera (dir. Janos Edelenyi) WP

The Seventh Circle (dir. Arpad Sopsits) WP

Transmission (dir. Roland Vranik) WP

Virtually A Virgin (dir. Peter Bacso)

Wild Girl (dir. Dezso Zsigmond) WP