The 13th annual Nortel Networks Palm Springs International Film Festival will take place in Palm Springs, California, from Jan 10 to 21, 2002, with the deadline for submissions set as Nov 15, 2001. The festival was co-founded by Sonny Bono and festival director Denis Pregnolato in 1989 and last year screened 150 films from 40 countries.

Palm Springs also traditionally screens the majoritiy of films submitted for consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Academy Awards.

The festival programming team is headed by Jennifer Stark (director of programming), Alissa Simon (programmer for Middle East, Eastern and Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Iceland, Finland and Africa), Ian Birnie (programmer for France and Germany), Leonardo Garcia Tsao (programmer for South America, Latin America, Spain and Mexico), Dr David B Kaminsky (programmer for Italy and Brasil) and Theresa Hayes (programmer for India).