Eleven world premieres, 14US premieres and tributes to Lili Taylor, Peter Coyote and Denys Arcand areamong the highlights of the 26th Mill Valley Film Festival, which runs in MarinCounty, California, from Oct 2-12.

Featured among the worldpremieres are Brigitte Brault's harrowing examination of life under theTaliban in Afghanistan Unveiled,David Hickson's South African-set drama about a musician's personalodyssey in Beat The Drum, WillParrinello's portrait of Tibetan exiles in Dreaming Of Tibet and Spin,a Hispanic family drama directed by Robert Redford's son James.

US premieres includeChristine Jeffs' Sylvia,the biopic of Sylvia Plath starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Neil Young'sintricate story of a California community in Greendale, Vibeke Idsoe's children's feature KarlssonOn The Roof and Sumitra Bhave andSunil Sukthankar's tale of post-independence India in The GuardianSpirit Of The House.

The festival will open withTom McCarthy's Sundance winning comedy-drama The Station Agent, Carl Franklin's Florida-set thriller OutOf Time and John Sayles'adoption drama Casa De Los Babys,which stars honouree Lili Taylor.

The centrepiece film isCampbell Scott's family drama Off The Map and the event closes with Denys Arcand'scomedy-drama The Barbarian Invasions, which won the best actress award for Marie-Josee Croze and bestscreenplay for Arcand at Cannes. Cannes for best actress and screenplay.

A host of US andinternational titles includes Peter Webber's acclaimed Girl With APearl Earring, Keith Gordon's TheSinging Detective, ClaudeChabrol's The Flower Of Evil,Tian Zhuangzhuang's Springtime In A Small Town and children's titles such as AnyaRose's abridged version of Hamlet and Pierre Monnard's British comedy Swapped.

The documentary strandincludes Carmen Piccini's portrait of the master director in The MagicOf Fellini, Hart Perry's studyof Texan migrant farm workers in Valley Of Tears, Mark Moorman's tribute to the legendary soundengineer in Tom Dowd: The Language Of Music, and Nathaniel Kahn's tribute to his famousarchitect father Louis I Kahn in My Architect.

The remaining worldpremieres are: Paulo Levine's Burials And Borders; Tolan Harber's Burnt Sienna; Geoffrey Dunn and Michael Horne's CalypsoDreams; Juan Gerard's DreamingOf Julia; Hurt McDermott's NightingaleIn A Music Box; Colin Nutley'sParadise; and KarinaEpperlein's We Are Here Together.

The other US premieres are:Jean-Marie Teno's Alex's Wedding; Kaisa Rastimo's Hayflower And Quiltshoe; Karen Littauer's I Remember: Tales FromGreenland; Anne Wild's MyFirst Miracle; IdrissouMora-Kpai's Si-Gueriki The Queen Mother; Henrik Ruben Genz's Someone Like Hodder; Pascale Lamche's Sophiatown; Sonja Vesterholt and Mads Baastrup's TheStar Dreamer; and JorgGrunler's The Tenth Summer.