Four German titles, including new films from Joseph Vilsmaier and Roland Suso Richter, will make their world premiere in Official Competition at the Montreal World Film Festival, from Aug. 23 to Sept. 3. Competing against the four is two-time Montreal Grand Prize winner Majid Majidi. The Iranian filmmaker returns with Baran, a story of the Afghani underclass in modern Iran. In all 24 films will compete at the festival, the only FIAPF-recognized A Category competitive festival in North America.

The Vilsmaier film, Leo And Claire, sees the director returning to Nazi-era anti-Semitism that shaped his previous film, Comedian Harmonists, while Richter's The Tunnel tells of an escape under the Berlin Wall. Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Experiment and Vanessa Joop's Engel & Joe are contemporary stories of immigrant and youth alienation respectively.

The next highest nation represented is Canada with four, including Claude Miller's Betty Fischer And Other Stories, a Canada-France coproduction. Only two US titles were selected for competition --Todd Fields' In The Bedroom and Leon Ichaso's Pinero -- although a rare hybrid, Digvijay Singh's Maya, a US-India co-production also made the selection.

Miller, a Montreal favourite, brings Betty Fischer, a psychological thriller about a mother's loss of her son. The other Canadian titles include Denis Chouinard's Tar Angel, a story of Algerian immigrants in Montreal and Francis Leclerc's Une Jeune Fille A La Fenetre, a period tale of a doomed young woman's brief taste of spiritual freedom.

The 2001 Jury is headed by French actress Emmanuelle Beart and filmmakers Rakhstan Bani-Etemad of Iran, Jamie Humberto Hermosillo of Mexico and Patricia Rozema of Canada.

Films screening out of competition include Billy Bob Thornton's Daddy And Them and Lina Wertmuller's Francesca And Nunziata. As well as the standard world cinema and new cinema programs, Montreal is presenting a Focus on German Cinema, including the international premiere of Hardy Martin's As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me, the true story of a WWII German POW who escaped a Siberian labour camp. As previously announced Montreal will be presenting life-time achievement tributes to Sophia Loren, producer Dino De Laurentiis, Argentine filmmaker Fernando Solanas and Spanish actor Paco Rabal, famous for his roles in the films of Luis Bunuel.

The 25th anniversary will be marked by pre-festival screenings of a selection of Montreal discoveries, films like David Lynch's Blue Velvet, which premiered in Official Competition and went on to become acknowledged as classics.

2001 Montreal World Film Festival Official Competition

DER TUNNEL (THE TUNNEL) Germany / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 157 min / Dir. Roland Suso Richter

CHINGU (FRIEND) South Korea / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 117 min / Dir. Kwak Kyung-taek

SA VIT SOM EN SNO (AS WHITE AS IN SNOW) Sweden - Denmark / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 160 min / Dir. Jan Troell

LAVOURA ARCAICA (TO THE LEFT OF THE FATHER) Brazil / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 171 min / Dir. Luiz Fernando Carvalho

MIEL PARA OSHUN (HONEY FOR OSHUN) Cuba - Spain 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 115 min / Dir. Humberto Solas


DAS EXPERIMENT (THE EXPERIMENT) Germany 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 120 min / Dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel

TORZOK (ABANDONED) Hungary 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 98 min / Dir. Arpad Sopsits

FU QIN BA BA (FATHERS) China / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Lou Jian

BARAN (BARAN) Iran / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 94 min / Dir. Majid Majidi

PISMO DO AMERIKA (LETTER TO AMERICA) Bulgaria - Netherlands - Hungary / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 89 min / Dir. Iglika Triffonova

MARIAGES Canada / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 95 min / Dir. Catherine Martin

ENGEL & JOE (ENGEL & JOE) Germany / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Vanessa Jopp

LEO UND CLAIRE (LEO AND CLAIRE) Germany / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / min / Dir. Joseph Vilsmaier

L'ANGE DE GOUDRON (TAR ANGEL) Canada / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 110 min / Dir. Denis Chouinard

UNE JEUNE FILLE À LA FENÊTRE Canada / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 91 min / Dir. Francis Leclerc

STILLE LIEBE (SECRET LOVE) Switzerland / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 90 min / Dir. Christoph Schaub

KAH-CHAN (BIG MAMA) Japan / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Kon Ichikawa

BETTY FISCHER ET AUTRES HISTOIRES (BETTY FISCHER AND OTHER STORIES) France - Canada / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 100 min / Dir. Claude Miller

IN THE BEDROOM United States / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 138 min / Dir. Todd Field

TILT (NOS HACEMOS FALTA) (TILT) Spain 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 93 min / Dir. Juanjo Gimenez Pena

MAYA India - US 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 105 min / Dir. Digvijay Singh

PINERO United-States / 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 96 min / Dir. Leon Ichaso

EL HIJO DE LA NOVIA (THE SON OF THE BRIDE) Argentina 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / ''min / Dir. Juan-Jose Campanella.

CHIMERA Italy 2001 / 35 mm / Colour / 83 min / Dir. Pappi Corsicato