The Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundationis launching a new UK-based documentary festival, Britdoc, to be held at Keble College in Oxfordfrom July 26-28.

The event seeks to bringan international scope to the UK documentary world. "We want to encourage UK documentary filmmakers to be involved in theinternational co-production of feature documentaries," says festival director Beadie Finzi. "We have thisfantastic talent pool of film-makers that may rely too much on the UK broadcasters and aren't in the habit of exploringthose international opportunities. They need to look at feature documentarypropositions beyond the UK."

Britdoc will host competitions for 12 UK documentaries and 12 international documentaries.

Programming is ongoingbut features confirmed so far are Hazel Chandler's Kimmie,Nick and Marc Francis' Black Gold, and Rex Bloomstein'sKZ from the UK and international titles 51 Birch Street by Doug Block and Darkonby Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer.

Shortsselections haven't been named yet, although the shorts programme will includethe winning films from the Channel 4 and ITN Archive competition foremerging film-makers.

Inaddition to industry-oriented screenings, the festival will host outdoorcommunity screenings.

Otherplanned programmes include networking sessions, masterclasses,one-to-one surgeries with documentary experts, and a pitching forum organisedwith the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.

Organisershope to attract 400 attendees during the first year. Participants will include film-makers MorganSpurlock and Albert Maysles.

The festival's foundingprincipal sponsors are More4 and Nokia. Screen International is one of the event's media sponsors.

Moredetails are available at the festival website.