Lee Daniels’ The Butler will open the 15th Mumbai Film Festival (October 17-24), which will screen more than 200 films from 65 countries and award $220,000 in cash prizes.

Presented by Reliance Entertainment and organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), the festival features four competitions sections, including the India Gold competition for Indian features (see full line-up below).

The International Competition for First Features has selected 13 films including Kim Morduant’s The Rocket; Singapore’s Oscar submission Ilo Ilo, directed by Anthony Chen; UK director Paul Wright’s For Those In Peril; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon.

The International Competition jury is headed by Bruce Beresford, while Asghar Farhadi is presiding over the India Gold jury; Indian director Hansal Mehta (Shahid) is heading the Celebrate Age jury, and Shoojit Sircar (Vicky Donor) is heading the Dimensions Mumbai jury.

The World Cinema section includes festival hits such as Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is The Warmest Color, Jafar Panahi’s Closed Curtains, Takashi Miike’s Shield Of Straw, Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, Jia Zhangke’s A Touch Of Sin, Ken Loach’s Spirit Of ‘45, The Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Dallas Buyers Club.

Special sections include a Celebration of Spanish Cinema; spotlight on Cambodian cinema; the 6th Rendez-vous with French Cinema; Kabul Fresh - New Voices in Afghan Cinema; a focus on experimental films; and retrospectives of the work of Costa Gavras and Leos Carax.

Costa Gavras and Tamil filmmaker and star Kamal Hassan will be presented with Lifetime Achievement Awards and the festival will also pay homage to late filmmakers Yash Chopra, Rituparno Ghosh and Pran.

The festival will also host a market, Mumbai Film Mart (October 18-20), at the Taj Vivanta.

India Gold 2013

Liar’s Dice, Dir: Geethu Mohandas (India/Hindi)

Crossing Bridges, Dir: Sange Dorjee Thongdok (India/Sherdukpen)

The World Of Goopi And Bagha, Dir: Shilpa Ranade (India/Hindi)

Virgin Talkies, Dir: K R Manoj (India/Malayalam)

A Silent Way, Dir: Manju Borah (India)

Monologue, Dir: Vaibhav Abnave (India/Marathi)

Invincible, Dir: Jahnu Barua (India/Assamese)

Powerless, Dir: Fahad Mustafa, Deepti Kakkar (India-US)

Qissa: The Tale Of A Lonely Ghost, Dir: Anup Singh (India/Punjabi)

Oonga, Dir: Devashish Makhija (India)

Sunglass, Dir: Rituparno Ghosh (India)

Mastram, Dir: Akhilesh Jaiswal (India)

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