Aiming to restore its past glory, returning festival director Felice Laudadio has unveiled the line-up for this year's European Cinema Festival (Sept 14-21), including a competition section whose jury will be headed by Commedia all'Italiana founder Mario Monicelli.

The festival will give special attention to new German cinema. Two German films will screen in competition - Horst Sczerba's Herz and Sven Taddicken's Getting My Brother Laid (Mein Bruder Der Vampyr) - and five in a special German cinema sidebar. A jury made up of the festival audience and film students will hand out a EuropaCinema Award to the best German film in any section.

A further three international films will screen out of competition, including the Italian premiere of Franco Zeffirelli's Callas Forever and Luc Besson's 1988 movie The Big Blue, which will be released for the first time ever in Italy this year by Filmauro.

This year marks the return to the helm of the festival for Laudadio, who successfully headed the event from 1989 until 1996, when he became artistic director of the Venice Film Festival.

Competition films:

Falcons Dir. Fridrick Thor Fridriksson, Iceland
La Vita Come Viene Dir. Stefano Incerti, Italy
War Dir. Alerei Balabanov, Russia
The Cuckoo Dir. Alexander Rogoghkin, Russia
Herz Dir. Horst Sczerba, Germany
Le Ventre De Juliette Dir. Martin Provost, France
Mastermind Dir. Yuri Grymov, Russia
Kira's Reason Dir. Ole Chrisopher Madsen, Denmark
Mein Bruder Der Vampyr Dir. Sven Taddicken, Germany
Chekov's Motifs Dir. Kira Muratova, Russia