The East Coast premiere of Wayne Kramer's Las Vegas-set casinodrama The Cooler willopen the 2003 Hamptons International Film Festival, which runs from Oct 22-26and closes with the East Coast premiere of Robert Benton's drama The HumanStain.

All in all there will be 22 world premieres at this festival thattakes place in the upscale beach resort on Long Island that has become the summerwatering hole of choice for many New York City dwellers.

Those world premieres include writer-director Chris Lovenko'spsycho-drama Easy Sixstarring Julian Sands and Katherine Towne, Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno's familycomedy Little Kingsstarring Dominic Pace, and Kirk Davis' Texas-set drama Screen Door Jesus, starring Anjanette Comer and BuckTaylor.

A new World Cinema strand presents the world premiere of Raj Nidimoru'sFlavors, an Americanhomage to Bollywood, as well as Josef Fare's Swedish police genre parody Kopps, Rodrigo Bellott's Boliviancoming-of-age drama Sexual Dependency. Also showing is Sylvain Chomet's acclaimed animatedfeature Les Triplettes De Belleville (The Triplets Of Belleville), which was one of the surprise hits atCannes this year.

Spotlight Films include Jon Favreau's comedy Elf, starring Will Ferrell and James Caan,the East Coast premieres of Peter Webber's much-praised Girl With A Pearl Earring starring Oscar hopeful ScarlettJohansson and Colin Firth, and the New York premiere of Campbell Scott's OffThe Map, a bittersweetdrama that stars Joan Allen, Sam Elliot and Valentine De Angeles that debutedat Sundance.

Allen will receive the Golden Starfish Award for CareerAchievement in Acting and will also take part in a panel discussion with fiveyoung stars of the future under the Rising Stars: Screen Acting Discoveriesbanner.

Those youngsters are: Mylika Davis and GQ from Just AnotherStory, Savannah Haskeand Dean Wareham from Piggie and Elizabeth Moss from Virgin.

A packed short films programme includes the world premiere ofPaola Romagnani's New York-based romance Soul Mate and East Coast premieres of JacquelineWang's heartbreaker Match and Gilly Barnes' quirky audition piece Wait Here.

Errol Morris' The Fog Of War, a revealing series of conversations with the former USdefence secretary Robert McNamara about the nature of war, takes its place inthe Films of Conflict and Resolution programme. It too debuted at Cannes thisyear.

Panel discussion topics encompass contemporary trends ininternational film industry, science and technology on screen and the changingrole of the film critic, among others.

New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell will interview a mystery guest in AConversation With... and there are masterclasses on animation and cinematography.