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Clarence Tsui

With more than 240 films on offer, this year's festival has plenty  for everyone. Here are some of the highlights to watch out for:

Ethnic  cinema

Minority populations  have never had much of a  presence on Chinese screens. This year's festival boasts two films about marginalised communities. Zhang Lu's Grain in Ear  examines the bleak  circumstances that befall a Korean-Chinese community in the northeast.  Wanmacaidan's  The Silent Holy Stones  is  more upbeat. In a similar vein to Bhutan's The Cup,  it shows how young Tibetan lamas reconcile their traditions with television.

America, Danish-style

Lars von Trier  reignites his vendetta with the US in Manderlay, the follow-up to  Dogville's grisly  view of small-town America.  Bryce Dallas Howard  steps into Nicole Kidman's  shoes as Grace, who arrives  at a plantation in Alabama and  attempts to  free the black workers   - but the emancipation generates confusion and chaos.  Von  Trier pops up again in Thomas Vinterberg's  Dear Wendy,  which examines the history of violence  in American gun culture.

Stop-motion beauty

James Benning  was a mathematician before  becoming a director, and this may explain a lot  about the composition of  his films. One  Way Boogie Woogie,  which   made his name in avant-garde circles  in 1977, is  60, one-minute static takes, with the camera taking in the movements - or the lack of them - in various locations around a decaying Milwaukee.  The  festival's intensive retrospective also presents 27 Years Later, Benning's remake of Woogie (by shooting at the same spots) in 2005, and the self-explanatory pieces 13 Lakes  and Ten Skies.

The Sun in your eyes

The final instalment of  Aleksandr Sokurov's  trilogy about controversial 20th-century political leaders - the  other two being Hitler (Moloch)  and Lenin (Taurus) - The Sun maintains Sokurov's  focus on his subjects' human sides. Hirohito, the emperor who presided over Japan's military aggression in  the Far East during the second world war, is seen not as an evil war criminal - as some of his detractors regard him - but a childlike enthusiast of arts and science who's  unaware of the ravages his generals committed in his name. Many will see The Sun  as revisionist pap aimed at clearing Hirohito's  name.  Nonetheless, The Sun is a   visual masterpiece.

Here's the pitch

With the World Cup  around the corner, it's no surprise that soccer is  figuring in  film. Among this year's offerings is One Day in Europe,  which unfurls around an imaginary Champions League final between Deportivo  La Coruna  and Galatasaray in Moscow.  Meanwhile, three rowdy Celtic fans are central to Ken Loach's segment in Tickets.



Football, politics and nature are all in the picture