娱乐英语新闻:21st Stockholm Int'l Film Festival opens

STOCKHOLM, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- The 21st Stockholm International Film Festival opened on Wednesday with a film Heartbeats from the 21-year-old director Xavier Dolan from Canada.

A total of 180 films from 50 countries in the world will be presented in the next 10 days.

"What we want to achieve is to bring quality films from around the world so that the audience can have a wider perspective about our life through films," Scheynius said to Xinhua.

During the festival, there will be a competition for the prestigious Bronze Horse among 18 films including the Heartbeats, Our Day Will Come and Sound of Noise.

In the Open Zone, there will be contemporary cinema from around the world including the 1940s thriller Shanghai by Mikael Hafstrom with John Cusack, Gongli and Chow Yun-Fat in the leading role, Four More Years and As the Year's Go By.

In addition, there are American films including I'm Still Here, Asian Images including China's The Rice Paddy, Japanese Confessions, Hahaha and Outrage and Latin Visions showing Marimbas from Hell, October and Baby's Day Out.

Scheynius said that there are also films about extreme politics such as Four Lions about four suicide bombers, The Last Circus, Of Gods and Men about terrorists and the new film about the recent Swedish election, "Thank You, Goodbye, Go Home".

There are also documentaries including Beijing Taxi, Countdown to Zero, the award-winning Waste Land and the French film Rolling With Stone.

During the festival, one can also watch nine films through the internet no matter where you are in the world through www. stockholmfilmfestival.se and vote for your favorite. Internet film festival was launched in 2000.

Lifetime Achievement Award for this year's festival will be presented to Swedish actress Harriet Andersson for her over 100 characters in film and theatre and Visionary Award to Gus Van Sant from America.

The Stockholm International Film Festival started in 1990 with just 45 films and is today one of the leading competitive film festival in Europe with 180 films.

The festival is also recognized for its ability to promote and offer a venue for young and unestablished film-makers. As many as a third of the films selected are made by a debuting director and only directors who have made less than three films are selected for the competition.