The 22nd Mar del Plata International Film Festival (March 8-18) has announced its line-up.

In his fifth and final year as Argentina's main festival director Miguel Pereira told Screen the event is increasing its focus on Latin America's emerging talents with a new cash award of $50,000 for the best film in a new section reserved for first and second features and documentaries to run parallel to the official competition.

Among the tiles selected for the main competition are Albert Serra's Honour of the Knights (Spain), Marina Spada's As the Shadow (Italy), Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr's Ten Canoes (Australia), Carlos Diegues' The Greatest Love in the World (Brazil), Cesc Gay's Fiction (Spain), Otar Iosseliani's Gardens in Autumn (France), Gustavo Postiglione's La Peli (Argentina); Hernan Gaffet's Ciudad en Celo (Argentina) and Hong Sang-soo's Woman On The Beach (South Korea).

The official section program includes festivals favourites (running out of competition) such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes And A Century, Tsai Ming-liang's I Don't Want to Sleep Alone; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates; Paul Verhoeven's Black Book; Aki Kaurismaki's Lights in the Dusk; Stephen Frears' The Queen; David Lynch's Inland Empire, and Jafar Panahi's Offside (opening film).

The new Latin American competition will feature films from Brazil (Karim Ainouz's Suely In The Sky; Marcelo Santiago's Dancing In Utopia and Claudio Assis' Baixio Das Bestas), Mexico (Francisco Vargas' The Violin; Daniel Gruener, Never On A Sunday; Francesco Tabeada Tabone's Pancho Villa); Cuba (Jose Luis Sanchez's El Benny; Pavel Giroud's La Edad De La Peseta/The Silly Age); Paraguay (Ramiro Gomez's Red Land); Argentina (Cristian Bernard-Flavio Nardini's Regresados; Eduardo Perez's En Obra, Nicolas Prividera's M); Bolivia (Alejandro Landes' Cocalero) and Ecuador (Daniel Andrade-Anahi Hoeneisen's Esas No Son Penas/ Anytime Soon).

The $ 1.8m film festival will screen 300 titles (120 features and 180 shorts). There will be a gala tribute to the late local directors Fabian Bielinsky and Eduardo Mignogna, a retrospective of Aardman's works with the presence of Peter Lord and David Sproxton, a focus on Afro-American cinema with Charles Burnett, and selections of films from the Maghreb and Italian films. Mario Monicelli, now 91, confirmed he will be in Mar del Plata to present his latest effort The Roses of the Desert.

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