The RiverRun International Film Festival will open its 11th-annual event on April 22 with Mark Webb's (500) Days Of Summer. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina, event will close April 29 with a screening of Harold Lloyd's classic 1928 silent comedy Speedy accompanied by the Alloy Orchestra.

Ramin Bahrani will receive RiverRun's first Emerging Master Award after a screening of his latest film, Goodbye Solo, which is partially set in Winston-Salem.

In all, the festival will screen 37 features and 63 shorts from 26 countries. Guillermo Arriaga's The Burning Plain will be the Centerpiece Premiere.

The narrative competition is comprised of eight films:
HEART OF FIRE by Luigi Falorni
IL DIVO by Paolo Sorrentino
MOMMY IS AT THE HAIRDRESSER'S by Lea Pool
RUMBA by Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy
THREE MONKEYS by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
TREELESS MOUNTAIN by So Yong Kim
TULPAN by Sergey Dvortsevoy
A WOMAN IN BERLIN by Max Farberbock

The jurors are Lucasfilm's Eric Besner, film-maker Jennifer Lynch, critic Andrew O'Hehir, Chicago festival founder Michael Kutza and a film student from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

The documentary competition is another eight titles:
ART & COPY by Doug Pray
FOOD INC. by Robert Kenner
FOOTBALL UNDER COVER by Ayat Najafi & David Assmann
GUEST OF CINDY SHERMAN by Tom Donahue & Paul Hasegawa-Overacker
KALINOVSKI SQUARE by Yury Khashchavatski
ROCATERRANIA by Brett Ingram
UNMISTAKEN CHILD by Nati Baratz
WAVERIDERS by Joel Conroy

The documentary jurors are Facets Cinematheque's Charles Coleman, IMDB.com's Christian Gaines, Duke professor Nancy Kalow, journalist Dave Morgan and a film student from Wake Forest University.

The films in special presentations include John Ford's The Prisoner Of Shark Island, Emmanuel Mouret's Shall We Kiss', and Bob Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad. Other features outside of competition include Glenn McQuaid's I Sell The Dead and Nina Paley's Sita Sings The Blues.

The festival's first Spotlight programme is dedicated to American and Canadian documentaries by emerging talents. Those include Megumi Sasaki's Herb And Dorothy, Rachel Goslins' 'Bama Girl, Gerald Peary's For The Love Of Movies: The Story Of American Film Criticism, Matt Barr's With These Hands: The Story Of An American Furniture Factory and Scott Hamilton Kennedy's The Garden.

'Over the past few years, RiverRun has developed a loyal following and built a reputation as one of the country's most prestigious regional film festivals. I think that's because we place such an emphasis on filmmakers and the power and urgency of new cinematic voices, such as Ramin Bahrani, the recipient of our inaugural Emerging Master Award,' said Andrew Rodgers, RiverRun's executive director. 'As far as what's different this year, we've extended the dates of the Festival to accommodate an increased demand for tickets; added a new non-competition sidebar section to showcase more films by emerging talents and greatly expanded the caliber of our Special Presentations. We're also proud to unveil the strongest Narrative Competition lineup that we've ever had.'

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