The Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival hasunveiled 15 of the titles set to compete for the official competition's GoldenShell prize at this year's 52nd edition (Sept 17-25) - showing off ahigh-profile and geographically balanced international line-up.

Following the inauguration by Woody Allen'sout-of-competition comedy Melinda AndMelinda are new films from well-known international directors such as JohnSayles (Silver City), MichaelWinterbottom (Nine Songs) andDenmark's Susanne Bier (Brothers).

Always strong across the Spanish-speaking markets, SanSebastian's competition this year also welcomes new works by Argentina's AdolfoAristarain (Roma), Carlos Sorin (Bombon- El Perro) and Maria VictoriaMenis (El Cielito); as well asColumbia's Victor Gaviria (Sumas Y Restas).

European entries include Francois Dupeyron's Inguelezi, Robert Guediguian's My Father Is An Engineer (Mon Pere Est UnIngenieur) and Pete Travis's Omagh.

From Serbia-Montenegro, Goran Paskaljevic's Winter Night's Dream (San Zimskenoci);from Morrocco-France, Daoud Aoulad-Syad's Tarfaya;and from Iran-Iraq comes Bahman Ghobadi's TurtlesCan Fly.

China's Xu Jinglei and South Korea's Song Il-gon representAsia with, respectively, A Letter Of AnUnknown Woman and Spider Forest.

Many of the directors present have a history with SanSebastian: Dupeyron and Aristarain are both previous winners of the GoldenShell; Winterbottom was the subject of a retrospective last year and Sayles in1994; and Sorin won the special jury prize in 2002 for Minimal Stories (Historias Minimas).

Georgian director Dito Tsintsadze's German film Gun-Shy was the controversial top winnerat San Sebastian last year, while local hit TakeMy Eyes (Te Doy Mis Ojos) won best actor and actress awards and South Korean'sBong Joon-ho picked up both best director and best new director awards for Memories Of Murder.