This year's San Sebastian International film festival (Sept18-27) will see its official selection include new films from acclaimed directors Daniel Burman, Christophe Honore, Kim Ki-Duk, Kristian Levring and local favourite Jaime Rosales.

Multi-award winning Argentinean director Daniel Burman will present his sixth feature, Empty Nest (El Nino Vacio), which has already had success at the box office in the director's home country and been picked up by Bavaria Film International for worldwide distribution rights. The film tells the story of a married couple confronted with life after their children move out of the family home.

Respected Korean director Kim Ki-duk will be competing in official selection at the Spanish festival for the first time with his new film Dream (Bi Mong), which explores a couple's relationship though a dream state and in the real world.

Danish director Kristian Levring, one of the creators of the Dogme 95 movement, will present Fear Me Not (Den Du Frygter), his fourth film, co-written by Oscar winning Anders Thomas Jensen. The film stars Ulrich Thomsen as a 42-year-old man who signs up for clinical trials of a new anti-depressent, but then becomes hooked on the pills.

One of France's new talented directors Christophe Honore will compete at San Sebastian with La Belle Personne, which brings the classic novel La Princesse De Cleves to modern day Paris involving a student who falls for her teacher, starring Louis Garrel. Honore's previous film Les Chansons d'Amour was in competition at Cannes last year.

Also featuring in this year's competition line-up isthe world premiere oflocal director Jaime Rosales' new political drama Tiro En La Cabeza, which shot for two weeks in San Sebastian itself. Rosales has seen his stock rise considerably thanks to his best director win at the Goya awards for his previous film Solitary Fragments (La Soledad), which also featured in Un Certain Regard at last year's Cannes.

The final two films to be announced are Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi's Laila's Birthday (Eid Milad Laila) about a judge forced to work as a taxi driver in Ramala, and US director Courtney Hunt's debut film Frozen River, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was described by Quentin Tarantino, a jury member at the festival, as 'a marvellous description of poverty in America.'

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