Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother has been selected to open the International Istanbul Film Festival (Apr 15-30), the region's premiere film event.

The festival will close with Turkish-UK title Mozart In Turkey, while the UK is also represented by an eight-film spotlight including East Is East, The War Zone and With Or Without You.

In the international competition are Turkey's Clouds Of May, which also competes in the national competition; Misery Harbour, by Nils Gaup; India's The Last Dance; Poland's The Story Of Cinema From The Village Of Popielawy; the UK's Topsy Turvy; Brazilian-Paraguayan title The Call Of The Oboe; Rembrandt, a French-German-Dutch title; Egypt's The Town; Russia's Sky In Diamonds; the US' Cradle Will Rock; French-Italian title Time Regained; and One Winter In The Back Of Beyond, from Hungary, France and Belgium.

Other sections include a strand focusing on literary adaptations - which this year includes Ang Lee's Ride With The Devil and Manoel de Oliveira's The Letter - and a section highlighting new film-makers which includes Barbara Albert's Nordrand, Tony Bui's Three Seasons and Lukas Moodysson's Show Me Love.

The traditional section dedicated to arts and the movies includes such titles as Andre Labarthe's David Cronenberg, I Have To Make The World Be Flesh; Wim Wenders' Buena Vista Social Club; and Jean-Pierre Limosin's Takeshi Kitano, L'Imprevisible.

Tributes go to such film-makers as Robert Bresson, Takeshi Kitano, Theo Angelopoulos, Sureyya Duru and Ken Loach. Charlie Chaplin is feted in a special event screening of his 1931 title City Lights, which will be accompanied by an orchestra, while the focus on a young director platforms the work of France's Laurent Bouhnik.