MUMBAI: The 38th Athens International Film and Video Festival will open Friday at the Athena Cinema with 250 independent films from around the world. The festival will run through Thursday, 28 April.

Among the films included in this year’s International Feature Showcase are Kaboom, , Uncle Boonmee, Poetry, and Meek’s Cutoff, starring Michelle Williams.

“The breadth and richness of this year’s crop of competition films is truly inspiring,” says Festival director Ruth Bradley.  “We are really privileged and honored to be able to put together such a diverse and challenging program.”

Filmmaker Barbara Hammer will be screening new films and doing a live revision of an early performance art piece originally staged in the 1970s, while James Benning and Jay Rosenblatt, both major figures in independent American film, will be present to screen and discuss new works.

The Festival is sponsored by the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University, and receives generous funding from the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment of the Arts.