The Osian's-Cinefan 8^th Festival of Asian Cinema gets underway in Delhi on 14 July 2006, and on the 15th we will have our gala Opening ceremony, followed by the world premiere of Pan Nalin's sumptuous new picture, Valley of Flowers .

Over ten days, audiences will be treated to the very best of Asian and Arab cinema —new films by old masters, many of them world premieres, bold and innovative debut features, stories that travel across continents and borders, over mountains and into homes. Our selection of over a hundred films from forty countries reflects the unparalleled diversity and eclecticism in the cinemas of Asia. Where else could you find, side by side, the austere and the exuberant, the monk and the mobster, Ghatak and Kim Ki-duk?

Our Asian Competition brings together striking new work from Iraq, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia, with the latest fare from established filmmakers in Sri Lanka, Iran and Indonesia, as well as Saudi Arabia's first ever feature film. Similarly, in the eleven films in Indian Competition , you will find the names of Girish Kasaravalli and Santosh Sivan alongside first-time directors Suman Mukhopadhyay and Taranjeet Singh.

Osian's-Cinefan will showcase a clutch of outstanding films in two of its well-established sections — Cross-Cultural Encounters (featuring films from different regions of the world) and Arabesque (the latest films from Arab countries) —as well as a large mosaic displaying the range of work being produced in Asia and India, in Asian Frescoes and Indian Osean respectively. In-Tolerance features three outstanding documentaries that hold a mirror to the past and the present.

Celebrating the 2550th anniversary of the birth of the Buddha, we present The Middle Path: a selection of films on Buddhism. Our Tributes section comprises a retrospective look at the cinema of Ritwik Ghatak and Stanley Kwan , and four films from under the banner of New Theatres , in acknowledgment of their 75th year in the business.

Osian's-Cinefan also continues the exciting initiative - Infrastructure Building for Minds & Markets (IBM²) - an unprecedented public forum within which we will host a series of debates, panel discussions and conferences that relate to infrastructure building within the realms of art, popular culture and cinema. Topics of discussions will include: The Limits of Screenwriting, Cinema and Historical Sensibility, Independent Cinema: the Politics of Production and Distribution, Art as Knowledge and Education and Censorship.

As a complement to the Film Festival, IBM² will also encompass the third edition of Talent Campus India , our interactive workshop for young filmmakers (in collaboration with the Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale Talent Campus and Max Mueller Bhavan), a Ritwik Ghatak-inspired Seminar entitled Parallel Voices in Indian Cinema, an International Media Round Table on Film Writing, Exhibitions of Masterpieces of Asian Art and World Cinema Memorabilia and The ABC Series II —The Art, Book and Cinema Auction.

As always, we will have many eminent international guests and delegates at Osian's-Cinefan, this year in even larger numbers. Luminaries such as Peggy Chiao, Jean-Claude Carriere, Mark Damon, Stanley Kwan, Xie Fei, Tu Duu Chih, Tony Rayns, Khairy Beshara, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Naseeruddin Shah will all be participating in the festival.