Budapest deputylord mayor János Schiffer isscheduled to open the 13th Titanic Budapest International FilmFestival on March 29 with a gala screening of Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of MelquiadesEstrada.

For the firsttime in the festival's history, an international jury will choose a competitionwinner from among nine contenders which have already collected a forest oflaurels between them.

Films in internationalcompetition include Russian entry 4,which earned Ilya KhrzhanovskyBest Director at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinemain 2005 and collected prizes at the Rotterdam and Transylvania international festivalsthat year.

Miranda July's Me and You and EveryoneWe Knowpicked up three awards in Cannes including the GoldenCamera in 2005 and won awards at Sundance, Stockholm and San Francisco.

South Koreandirector Chan-wook Park's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, recentlynominated for Best Asian Film in Hong Kong, won the 'CinemAvvenire' Award at Venice in 2005 and wasnominated for the Screen International Award at the European Film Awards lastyear.

Other entriesinclude director Changwei Gu'sSilver-Bear winner Peacock, LennyAbrahamson's Adam and Paul,Brothers of the Head from directorsKeith Fulton and Louis Pepe, Philippe Faucon's The Betrayal,Nicholas Winding Refn's I'm the Angel of Death: Pusher III and Mohammad Rasoulof's The IronIsland.

The jury is madeup of Shane Danielsen, art director of the EdinburghInternational Film Festival; György Báron, president of the Association of Hungarian Film critics;and Nils Klevjar Aas of theNorwegian Film Foundation. The winner of the Breaking Waves Award and $9,613(Euros8,000) will be announced April 8.

Expectedfestival guests include the Quay brothers (ThePiano Tuner of Earthquakes), Frostbitedirector Anders Banke and producer Magnus Paulsson, the Austrian director Paul Rosdy(Neue Welt) and Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky 4).

The programme includes a Dardennesbrothers retrospective and sections focusing on animation, crime mysteries, newFrench works, horror films, Sundance winners plus documentaries.

The Titanic programme includes more than 50 films. Nearly 20,000 peopleattended last year's festival.