The 9th RESFEST touring festival willkick off its global tour of 35 plus cities with a launch at New York City'sTribeca Performing Arts Center from September 15-18.

This year's RESFEST willoffer the world premiere of Doug Pray's graffiti documentary Infamy aswell as retrospectives devoted to musician Beck, the label XL Recordings, andwork of the Swedish collective Traktor.

The festival continuesto cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Glasgow,Dublin, Belfast, Turin, Barcelona, Istanbul, Seoul, Tokyo, Kyoto, Melbourne andSydney (the programme varies by city.)

The tour willadd new stops this year in Europe, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Turin, Rome,and Vienna. Festival director Jonathan Wells told ScreenDaily.com thatthe festival would probably also include a stop in Buenos Aires, but not untilMarch 2006.

Other features screenedin select cities will be Mike Mills' Thumbsucker; Liam Lynch's Jesusis Magic, a concert film of comedienne Sarah Silverman; Japanese anime sequelGhostin the Shell II: Innocence; Thibaut deLongeville and Lisa Leone's Just for Kicks, an examination of athleticfootwear; and Brazilian documentary Ginga: The Soul of Brazilian Football."For a festival that tours,it's always been difficult to secure these kinds of feature films," Wellsnoted. He another improvement this year was the festival's enhanced websitewith videos, blogging, and podcasts.

As usual, shorts andmusic videos programmes comprise a large portion of RESFEST. Among the shorts selectedare Winner Take Steve, directed by Napoleon Dynamite's JaredHess; Gaelle Denis' City Paradise, Miguel Arteta's Are You the Favorite Person ofAnybody', Talmage Cooley's Dimmer, Chris Cunningham's RubberJohnny, Dominic Hailstone's The Eel, and Nash Edgerton'sstunt film Lucky. The themed shorts programmes include Cutand Paste, featuring short films and videos that use sampling andhandcrafting, and a design programme.

Music videos willinclude works for the likes of RJD2, The Chemical Brothers, Dizzee Rascal, BlocParty, Soulwax, The Arcade Fire, The Shins, and LCD Soundsystem. RESFEST will also present a selection of vintage New Order videos.

Wells saidanother new feature of this 9th tour would be keynote speakers in each city.The speakers include Photographer/director Stephane Sednaoui (New York), director Mike Mills (SanFrancisco), Mark Romanek (Los Angeles), and Anton Corbijn (London), and artistCharlie White (Chicago).

Other RESFESTactivities include panels about topics such as DVD distribution, music videocommissioning, and copyright; a preview of Richard Linklater's A ScannerDarkly; digital filmmaking seminars; and a design competition.