The 12th Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) has confirmed the directors for this year’s Jeonju Digital Project omnibus as Jean-Marie Straub, Claire Denis and José Luis Guerin.

Launched in 2000, Jeonju Digital Project is an annual omnibus, produced by the festival, of three shorts by directors from different continents each year. Jeonju Digital Project 2010 was directed by James Benning (US), Denis Côté (Canada) and Matías Piñeiro (Argentina). It has been invited to several festivals including Locarno.

This year, JIFF selected three European auteurs for the project, describing them as Jean-Marie Straub, “a militant of modern cinema who has examined the materialistic aspect of cinema”, Claire Denis, “an adventurer who has attempted to encounter the other by crossing boundaries”, and José Luis Guerin, a director who has “discovered the mystery of life with the attitude of an essayist.”

Straub’s contribution to the project will be The Heir, a sequel of Lothringen!, both based on the writings of Maurice Barrès. Straub plans to complete two different versions of The Heir and both will be screened at JIFF this year.

Denis plans to criticize the history of African colonialism with Alibi for Aliba (working title) which is a story of an Aluku man escaped from a Dutch sugarcane plantation.

Guerin, who was invited to JIFF in 2008 with In the City of Sylvia and Some Photos in the City of Sylvia, will tell a story about a violinist he got to know from observing through a window in A Neighborhood Story (working title).

Jeonju Digital Project 2011 will premiere at JIFF, which will run April 28-May 6.

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