Meryl Streep and Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf will be among the guests at this year's Giffoni Film Festival, one of the premier festivals dedicated to youth-oriented cinema and the only one whose jury is entirely composed of international school children.

Artistic director Claudio Gubitosi, who founded the festival 32 years ago, also unveiled the first titles in the event's competition line-up: these include Abandoned, Hungarian director Árpád Sopsits's drama which is set in the 1960s in an orphanage; Iranian director Majd Majidi's Baran; Norway's Scars, directed by Lars Berg; Udavan Prasad's Gabriel and Me; Adam Shankman's A Walk to Remember, and Mexican director Gerardo Tort's Streeters, about a 15-year-old who lives on the streets of Mexico City and sells drugs for the corrupt policeman who controls his neighbourhood.

Earlier this year, Giffoni also became one of 29 events throughout Europe to be supported with a total of Euros 623,000 by the European Union's MEDIA Plus Programme in its latest round of funding for festivals.

Giffoni, which runs July 20th - July 27th, will unveil its full line-up on July 2nd.