Alan Rudolph's The Secret Lives Of Dentists has been selected as the opening night film for the 46th San Francisco International Film Festival on April 17. The film, which stars Campbell Scott and Hope Davis, has been well-received at its previous screenings at the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, and is distributed in North America by Manhattan Pictures International. Arclight Films has international rights.

The festival will close with another Sundance picture, Mark Decena's Dopamine on May 1. The romantic comedy is produced by San Francisco-based Kontent Films and Decena is a local film-maker.

Based on the novella The Age Of Grief by Jane Smiley, The Secret Lives Of Dentists is about two dentists who are married to each other and have three kids but whose rosy life together is shattered when infidelity enters the picture.

'The Secret Lives Of Dentists is a notably perceptive feature from the director of The Moderns and Choose Me, a completely human portrait of a couple at a crucial moment in their marriage," said Roxanne Messina Captor, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, which runs the festival. "We're delighted by the coincidence that a film by Alan Rudolph opens the Festival the same year that his early mentor Robert Altman receives the Film Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Directing.'

'Dopamine", she added, "is a remarkably assured first feature. Mark's story has captured the city's most appealing aspects. It's high-tech, romantic, smart and very much about San Francisco, a perfect closing note for the festival.'