MOOLADE

The Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival, which debuts on September 14th, will feature a showcase of 15 international films from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Festival, in its first outing, will be focused on a diverse international program that mixes the works of established film auteurs with the debut films of rising young talents, to offer an exciting panorama of exceptional films from around the globe.

The respected film auteurs in the program include veteran African director Ousmane Sembene, whose powerful film MOOLADE, the story of a tribal woman's attempts to protect young women from the mutilating ritual of female castration, won the 2005 Best Foreign Language Film Award from the National Society of Film Critics; Toronto-based director Deepa Mehta, who brings to the Festival the final chapter of her film trilogy, entitled WATER, a film set in the turbulent 1930s on the eve of Indian independence from Britain; and French director Cédric Klapisch, whose latest film RUSSIAN DOLLS is a sequel to his international arthouse hit L'AUBERGE ESPANOLE, about a group of twenty-somethings who share a summer house in Spain. One of the world's most exciting filmmakers, acclaimed UK director Michael Winterbottom, is represented by his internationally praised film IN THIS WORLD, a poignant study of two Afghan refugees and their compelling journey to find a new life in England.

LA MOUSTACHE

The bulk of the international program introduces new directorial voices that have made their mark at international film festivals around the world in the past two years. From Europe comes the debut films of Johannes Brunner (OKTOBERFEST, Germany), Emmanuel Carrère (LA MOUSTACHE, France) and Nedzad Begovic (TOTALLY PERSONAL, Bosnia).

The renaissance of the new Latin American Cinema is represented by the Sundance Film Festival sleeper ROMANTICO (Mexico) and the Chilean historical docudrama MACHUCA, set in the turbulent years of the military coup d'etat of the 1970s, which won Audience Awards at the Philadelphia and Vancouver Film Festivals.

Asian films figure strongly in the Festival lineup, including two films from China (TAKING FATHER HOME and GHOST FLEET: THE EPIC VOYAGE OF ZHENG HE); an award-winning documentary from Iran (IRON ISLAND); and the Japanese historical pagaent THE HIDDEN BLADE.

A special screening of the moving South African drama TSOTSI, which won the Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film of the year, will also be presented. In addition, several special screenings and a program of children's films are also on tap for the Festival, whose stated focus in its inaugural year is "other places