'Blancanieves' To Open Palm Springs Film Festival

World premieres include: Elephants (France), Molly Maxwell (Canada) and Smiling Through the Apocalypse ' Esquire in the 60s (USA), a documentary featuring Gore Vidal and Nora Ephron.

North American premieres include: 900 Days (Netherlands), Breakaway (Philippines), Crawl (France), The Daughter (Russia), Dreamers (France), Filmistaan (India), Goltzius and the Pelican Company (United Kingdom) starring F. Murray Abraham, The Hypnotist (Sweden) directed by Lasse Hallström, I Belong (Norway), Jews of Egypt (Egypt), Mental (Australia/USA) starring Toni Collette, Liev Schreiber and Anthony LaPaglia, Papadopoulos & Sons (UK/Greece), The Passion of Michelangelo (Chile/France), Playground Chronicles (France), Purge (Finland/Estonia), Sadourni's Butterflies (Argentina), The Snitch Cartel (Colombia), The Third Half (Macedonia), Two Lives (Germany/Norway) starring Liv Ullmann, This Life ' Some Must Die, So Others Can Live (Denmark), and Yema (Algeria/France)

U.S. premieres include: 4Some (Czech Republic), 7 Boxes (Paraguay), Allez, Eddy! (Belgium/Luxembuorg/The Netherlands), Call Girl (Sweden), Caught in the Web (China), Children of Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina), The Color of the Chameleon (Bulgaria), The Deep (Iceland/Norway), Eagles (Israel), Emperor (Japan/USA) directed by Peter Webber and starring Matthew Fox and Tommy Lee Jones, The Fifth Season (Belgium/Netherlands/France), First Comes Love (USA), Flying Blind (UK), The Fruit Hunters (Canada) featuring Bill Pullman, Great Expectations (UK/USA) directed by Mike Newell and starring Jeremy Irvine, Holliday Grainger, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Robbie Coltrane and Sally Hawkins, Hannah Arendt (Germany) starring Barbara Sukowa and Janet McTeer, Imagine (Poland/France/Portugal), Inescapable (Canada/South Africa) starring Marisa Tomei, Joshua Jackson and Oded Fehr, Jump (Ireland/UK), Mold (Turkey), More Than Honey (Germany/Austria/Switzerland), Multiple Visions (The Crazy Machine) (Mexico/France/Spain), Mumbai's King (India), Nuala (Ireland), Our Homeland (Japan), Satellite Boy (Australia), The Shine of Day (Austria), Shores of Hope (Germany), Soongava: Dance of the Orchids (Nepal/France), Still (Canada) starring James Cromwell and Campbell Scott, Suicide Shop (France/Canada/Belgium), Unfinished Song (UK), What is this Film Called Love? (UK), When Day Breaks (Serbia/Croatia/France), When I Saw You (Palestine), White Tiger (Russia) and A World Not Ours (UK/Lebanon/Denmark).

NEW VOICES/NEW VISIONS
The New Voices/New Visions Award will honor one of ten films from top emerging international directors marking their feature film debut at the Festival, with the additional criteria that the films selected are currently without US distribution. The winner is selected by a jury of US distributors and will receive a $60,000 Panavision camera rental package. Films selected for this year include:
7 Boxes (Paraguay), Beauty (Argentina), The Cleaner (Peru), The Daughter (Russia), I Belong (Norway), Mumbai's King (India), Playground Chronicles (France), Sadourni's Butterflies (Argentina), Satellite Boy (Australia), This Life ' Some Must Die, So Others Can Live (Denmark).

Other Festival films with notable talent and directors include: Michael Haneke's Amour (Austria); Leslie Zemeckis directs Bound By Flesh (USA); Bebe Neuwirth narrates Defiant Requiem (USA); Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Ashley Judd narrating A Fierce Green Fire (USA); Elle Fanning, Alessandro Nivola and Annette Benning in Ginger & Rosa (UK); Abbie Cornish in The Girl (USA/Mexico); Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne in I, Anna (UK/France/Germany); Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Alicia Witt in I Do (USA); Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp (USA) featuring Ice-T, Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg and Quincy Jones; La Source (USA/Haiti) narrated by Don Cheadle; Love, Marilyn (USA) featuring Elizabeth Banks, Lindsay Lohan, Evan Rachel Wood, Ben Foster, Uma Thurman, Paul Giamatti, Viola Davis, Jeremy Piven, Ellen Burstyn, Adrien Brody, Marisa Tomei and Glenn Close; Jeff Bridges in A Place at the Table (USA); Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone (France/Belgium); and Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Julianna Marguiles and Alan Arkin in Stand Up Guys (USA).