Borat and Seinfeld director Larry Charles has lined up as the keynote speaker for this year's third-annual Britdoc festival. He will also offer a sneak preview of his film Religulous starring Bill Maher.

This year's Britdoc festival themes are comedy and music in documentary, with scheduled visitors including Nitin Sawhney, St Etienne and Jonathan Dove.

The festival will this year host three pitching forums, the big pitch, short pitch and a new Good Pitch for social-action documentaries.

Deadline for the UK feature and short documentary competitions are May 9 and 16.

'Britain makes the best documentaries in the world and our films regularly scoop the biggest prizes around the world. Every year Britdoc celebrates British documentary filmmaking. It is the first chance to see the year's biggest feature documentaries such as In the Shadow of the Moon and discover how they get made.

'This year newscaster Jon Snow will chair a discussion with police investigators and psychoanalysts revealing the secrets of interview technique,' said Jess Search, chief executive of The Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation.

Britdoc is organised by the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation and is backed by sponsors including Channel 4, More4, The UK Film Council, Skillset, Screen South, JVC and Molinaire.

The festival runs July 23-25 at Keble College in Oxford.

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