MUMBAI: The Palm Springs International Film Festival that will be operative from 6 to 17 January will spotlight on African Cinema.

Dubbed Cinema Safari: A Showcase of African Cinema, the programme will present 13 new films made in Africa or presenting contemporary African stories or themes.

The section will include Debs Gardner-Paterson‘s Africa United; Davey Frankel and Rasselas Lakew‘s The Athlete; Sherry Hormann‘s Desert Flower; Gabriel Range‘s I Am Slave; Caroline Kamya‘s Imani; Claus Wischmann‘s Kinshasa Symphony; The Last Lions; Lance Bangs‘ The Lazarus Effect; Oliver Schmitz‘s Life Above All; Michael Henry Wilson‘s Reconciliation: Mandela‘s Miracle; Mahamat-Saleh Haroun‘s A Screaming Man; and Hawa Essuman‘s Soul Boy.

Organisers of the festival also released the line-up of films that will compete for the FIPRESCI Award, New Voices/New Visions Award and John Schlesinger Awards.

The titles in the New Voices/New Visions lineup that focuses on international directors making their feature debut are Emre Sahin‘s 40; Johannes Naber‘s The Albanian; Juanita Wilso‘s As If I Am Not There; Pernilla August‘s Beyond; Vardis Marinakis‘ Black Field; Edoardo Leo‘s Eighteen Years Later; Alexandru Maftei‘s Hello! How Are You?; Mikkel Munch-Fals‘ Nothing‘s All Bad; Hans Van Nuffel‘s Oxygen; Emilio Aragon‘s Paper Birds; Ola Simonsson and Stjarne Nilsson‘s Sound of Noise; and Nayra Illic‘s Square Meter.

Ten documentaries by first-time filmmakers that will compete for the John Schlesinger Award are Clio Barnard‘s The Arbor, Jan Tenhaven‘s Autumn Gold; Richard Press‘ Bill Cunningham New York; David Sievekin‘s David Wants to Fly; Edmon Roch‘s Garbo: The Spy; Nicola Belluci‘s In the Garden of Sounds; Risteard O‘Domhnail‘s The Pipe; Shlomi Eldar‘s Precious Life; Joonas Berghall‘s Steam of Life; and Lynn Trues Summer Pasture.

The festival will also screen 40 of the 64 films that have been submitted for an Academy Award in the foreign-language film category.