Darren Aronofsky's time-travel epic The Fountain starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weiszand David Lynch's mystery INLAND EMPIRE starring Laura Dern and Jeremy Irons have been added to theroster of AFI Fest centerpiece galas.

Festival organisers have also scheduled an on-stage interview withEd Zwick, which will feature clips from the director's upcoming thriller BloodDiamond starring LeonardDiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou. The interview takes place on Nov 8.

Aronofsky, Lynch and Zwick are all past recipients of AFI'sFranklin J Schaffner Alumni Medal recognising the talents of AFI Conservatoryalumni.

"This is a very exciting year for us," AFI Fest'sdirector of programming Nancy Collet said. "We noticed a lot of emergingtrends really hitting their stride. The films in the new late-night moviesection Dark Horizons seemed to be pushing some classic genre elements to thelimits.

"We also noticed a thriving, exciting film industry in Africaso we created the African Voices section. There are really originalstory-telling techniques coming from that part of the world."

The festival line-up includes Nicholas Hytner's drama TheHistory Boys; RogerMichell's drama Venus;William Friedkin's thriller Bug; Murali K Thalluri's Australian high school drama 2:37; Sean Ellis's UK romantic comedy Cashback; and Danny Lerner's Israeli thriller FrozenDays;

Also set to screen are 11 pictures that have been chosen as theircountry's foreign language Oscar submission, including: Susanne Bier's Danishdrama After The Wedding;Pedro Almodovar's Spanish drama Volver; Rolf De Heer's Australian adventure Ten Canoes; and Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck'sGerman drama The Lives Of Others.

The festival runs from Nov 1-12 and the line-up comprises 111features and 36 shorts. For more details visit the official website at www.AFI.com.