The 39th edition of the the Festival du nouveau cinema will open Oct. 13 with Quebec director Podz’s new flick 10 1/2 and close with another local film – Denis Cote’s Curling.

Billed as a festival goer’s festival, organizers of Montreal’s oldest film event have scoured the globe for some 295 films from 51 countries, including those from established names such as Mike Leigh (Another Year), Catherine Breillat (The Sleeping Beauty), Olivier Assayas (Carlos) Jean-Luc Godard (Film Socialism), and Thomas Vinterberg (Submarino).

Among the 30 films being screened in the International Panorama section are Aurora (Cristi Puiu, Romania/France/Switzerland); Le Cœur d’Auschwitz (Carl Leblanc, Quebec/Canada); Dirty Paradise (Daniel Schweizer, Switzerland/France); Donoma ( Djinn Carrenard, France); and Elisa K. (Judith Colell and Jordi Cadena, Spain).

The Focus section opens with the hard-hitting documentary on Omar Kadhr (You don’t like the Truth: 4 Days in Guantánamo by Luc Côté & Patricio Henriquez, Quebec/Canada) and includes a number of new Quebec and Canadian works such as A Night for Dying Tigers (Terry Miles); Affinity Point (Deeh); Aluku Liba (Nicolas Jolliet), Twice a Woman (François Delisle)and Fathers & Sons (Carl Bessaï).

The 39th festival will also pay tribute to Pierre Falardeau through the world premiere of the documentary Falardeau, directed by German Gutierrez and Carmen Garcia. FNC will also screen Octobre (1994) and Le Party (1990), presented during a special screening at EXcentris on October 19.

In partnership with the Cinematheque Quebecoise the FNC has also programmed a retrospective of directors Pierre Etaix and China’s Wang Bing (West of the Tracks).

Producer and former head of the NFB and Telefilm André Lamy will also be honored as well as Kathleen Hodgson Fleming, who died this year. Through her translation and subtitling company Fleming worked on hundreds of French-language films. In her honor the Festival will screen Trois temps après la mort d’’Anna (Mourning for Anna) by Catherine Martin, one of the last films she worked on.

The festival closes Oct. 24.