Spanish cinema is to play a prominent role at this year's International Screenwriters Festival.

Writers and film-makers from Spain will be be the centre of a series of sessions at the event in the UK town of Cheltenham (July 3-6).

Those present will include Ines Paris writer and director of Miguel And William; producer Antonio Saura Oculto, Salome, and Miguel And William; Pere Roca, director of the Institut Catala de Les Industries Culturels (ICIC); and screenwriter Valentin Fernandez-Tubau, director of Alma, the Spanish writers organisation, who has been involved in negotiating a new deal for screenwriters in Spain.

Sessions will touch on co production complexities and will also include UK screenwriter Brian Ward (The Interpreter, Death Defying Acts), who will discuss his experience of co productions and their finance requirements on the screenwriter and his work including projects with Spain.

Festival head David Pearson said, 'This is an opportunity to discover how putting together international projects impacts on stories, and writers, and how producers and financiers working with writers can do it better'.

The Spanish speakers will be welcomed to Cheltenham by the Mayor of Cheltenham at a reception attended by representatives from the Spanish Embassy.