Moonlight, the new English-language film from current Oscar nominee Paula van der Oest, will be among the titles screening in the official competition of the 4th Festival of European Cinema in Lecce, which runs from April 7th-12th.

Sold by Gary Hamilton's Arclight Films, Moonlight is a romantic thriller about 13 year-old girl who falls in love with an Afghan drug dealer. The film is produced by Emjay Rechsteiner of Staccato Films, the UK's Spice Factory, Delux Studios and peppermint, which originally held sales rights but lost them following its insolvency.

It is the Dutch filmmaker's first film after Zus & Zo, one of the five best foreign language film nominees at this year's Academy Awards.

Joining Moonlight in the festival's competition are I Am Dina, the $15.9m English-language film by Ole Bornedal, Austrian director Bernhard Weirather's Ikarus, and Icelandic actor-director (101 Reykjavik) Baltasar Kormakur's The Sea.

All 10 films in competition will receive their national or international premiere at the festival.

The festival, which is held in the southern town of Lecce, located in the "heel" of Italy, will also feature a retrospective of the works of Jules Dassin, and a showcase of Italian shorts from 1980 to 2001. These include films from Bread And Tulips' Silvio Soldini, Francesca Archibugi (Domani) and Mimmo Calopresti (La Felicita Non Costa Niente).

Veteran Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi's new film The Supplement will screen as a special event, out-of-competition.

Competition titles:

Lettere Al Vento, Edmond Budina (Italy 2003)
The Reunion, Mans Herngren and Hannes Holm (Sweden 2002)
Vagabond, Gyorgy Szomjas (Hungary 2003)
Loser Takes All, Nikos Nikolaidis (Greece 2002)
Moonlight, Paula Van der Oest (Holland 2002)
The Sea, Baltasar Kormakur (Iceland 2002)
Paule And Julia, Torsten Lohn (Germany 2002)
Ikarus, Bernhard Weirather (Austria 2002)
I Am Dina, Ole Bornedal (Norway 2002)
Mulher Policia, Joaquim Sapinho (Portugal 2002)