Venice Days, the Lido's first ever Directors Fortnight, willfeature 12 titles, including UK director Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes and Danish director Anders Ronnow-Klarlund's Strings.

The section, which is headed by Giorgio Gosetti, formerdirector of Italia Cinema, will also include two French films, three Italianfilms, and one Russian film.

In all, seven of the 12 films are debut features. All thefilms are European, a decision which Gosetti said was dictated by lack of time- he had less than three months to assemble this year's line-up.

Gosetti has repeatedly underlined that Directors' Fortnightis run completely autonomously from the Venice Film Festival, although it willuse the festival's screens and has the blessing of the Biennale.

All debut films in the section will also be able to competefor the Lion of the Future, an award destined for the best first film in anysection of the Venice Film Festival.

In presenting the Directors' Fortnight at the newShakespearean Globe Theatre in Rome's Villa Borghese Park, Gosetti underlinedthe vitality of current Italian filmmaking. "We were particularly happythat our foreign selectors appreciated the vitality and modernity of Italianfilms."

Directors' Fortnight will kick off on September 2 with thescreening of Marco Risi's Caro Vittorio,an homage to legendary Italian actor Vittorio Gassman.

Venice Days is twinned with Cannes' Quinzaine desRealisateurs and Berlin's Forum.

Directors' Fortnight selection:

Confituur, byLieven Debrauwer (Belgium)
A Costa Dos Murmurios (The MurmuringCoast) by Margarida Cardoso (Portugal)
Predmestje (Suburbs) by VinkoModerndorfer (Slovenia)
Strings by Anders Ronnow-Klarlund(Denmark)
Il Giorno del Falco by RodolfoBisatti (Italy)
L'Oeil De L'Autre (Now And Then) byJohn Lvoff (France)
Tartarughe Sul Dorso by StefanoPasetto (Italy)
Dead Man's Shoes by Shane Meadows(UK)
Nemmeno Il Destino by DanieleGaglianone (Italy)
Darwin's Nightmare by Hubert Sauper(Austria-France-Belgium)
4 by Ilya Khrzhanovsky (Russia)
Morasseix by Damien Odoul (France)