It is unusual for festival directors to make sonorous pronouncements from the Old Testament. But when Stella Hall proclaimed "Let there be light!" at the launch of the 39th Belfast Festival at Queen's, she clearly had every intention of fulfilling the command. Light, in its many creative forms, is the theme of this year's 18-day event, whose programme mirrors the broad international vision of its new director.

The theme, which comes from Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, was suggested by the Indian Community Centre in Belfast, whose members she met soon after arriving in the city, a year ago. On a subsequent trip to India, she experienced the delights of Diwali at first hand.

"Traditionally, people place lighted tapers in clay pots outside their homes," she says. "In Bengal, beautiful and intricate structures of bamboo, festooned with thousands of tiny hand-inserted lights, are mounted on prominent buildings. They create images which often depict key figures in the ancient Diwali story, as well as fruit, flowers, fireworks and famous people of the time.

"There will be light in unexpected places throughout Belfast during the festival, as well as on the film, visual-arts and classical-music programmes. We have invited a group of specialist artists from Chandannagore, in east India, to make their first visit to the UK and light up the frontage of Queen's University's Lanyon Building in traditional fashion. It will be like having a little piece of Calcutta right on the doorstep."

Hall took up her post just before last year's festival, taking a deliberately low-profile role and simply observing the programme put in place by Rosie Turner, her deputy, who was then the acting director. This is the first season for which she takes complete responsibility.

"It was tremendously useful to have last year to bed in," she says. "It gave me the opportunity to take a good hard look at the things our customers enjoyed and the things they didn't. If I hadn't gone through that experience, I would not have been as well equipped to make the changes I felt were necessary.

"It is all very well having big ideas as an individual, but you have to be prepared to be flexible and in tune with your audiences. People said: 'We want something exciting and different that wouldn't come at any other time; we want to take the family; we want to go to unusual shows in unusual spaces.' Young people said there weren't enough things for them. We knew that there were, but that there was a need to present them in a different way. So we have put that to rights this year, with a special brochure highlighting events that are definitely of interest to younger audiences."

This straight-talking woman from northern England comes to Belfast with an outstanding record in arts programming. Her career began in her native Manchester in 1983, when she set up the Green Room, an organisation through which she presented British and international touring drama, dance and music in all of the city's theatres. She was, for three years, the director of Barclays New Stages, a festival of independent theatre at the Royal Court, in London, and, for six years, on the board of the Royal National Theatre. In 1997, she was appointed director of Warwick Arts Centre, on the campus of the University of Warwick, the largest arts and entertainment complex in the UK outside of London.

She remains involved, in an associate role, with the London International Festival of Theatre, with which she programmed her first events back in 1983, and which has been instrumental in bringing The Theft Of Sita, an Australian-Indonesian production, to the Belfast Festival at Queen's for its Irish premiere. And she retains an active interest in Queer Up North, Manchester's massive gay and lesbian festival, with which she has been involved since 1995.

One might wonder what it was about the Belfast Festival at Queen's that attracted her to the top job. This is, after all, a post with a turbulent history, one that has attracted equal measures of praise and criticism - the former for the breadth and ambition of its programme and its endurance through difficult times; the latter for its perceived elitist image, gained through its association with the lofty academic life of Queen's University and its base in affluent south Belfast.

But five years of visiting Northern Ireland as an invited lecturer, guest speaker and arts consultant convinced her that this was an exciting place to settle with her partner and young son. She is well aware of the mantle she has inherited, but, with a mischievous sense of humour, she is determined to give the emperor's old clothes a fashionably contemporary look.

"I am acutely aware of the history of the festival," she says. "Next year it will be 40, which seems to me to be a good time to take a long, critical look at the past and the future. I am long enough past my own 40th birthday to accept that when I walk down the street I no longer get wolf whistles. But I don't want people thinking: 'There she goes, good old Stell!' I want them to say: 'Wow! Did you see her there? Doesn't she look well?' Likewise, I want our 40-year-old festival to look well and get wolf whistles.

"I very much value the strong foundations that have been laid down, and I have no intention of throwing the baby out with the bath water in any new plans. But the festival has to change, because Belfast and Northern Ireland are changing, and we can't live in a vacuum. We are an important element of the bid for the 2008 European City of Culture, and we see ourselves as part of a tapestry of arts activity, together with the Belfast Film Festival, Cinemagic, Open House, Aspects, Young at Art, the Cathedral Quarter Festival and the enormous range of events going on throughout the year."

The 2001 programme has been well received, although there have been rumbles of discontent among some local professionals, who feel themselves to have been sidelined among the "also-rans" in its back pages.

But Hall is keen to recoup lost goodwill and declares the festival's ongoing mission to be to nurture existing partnerships, build new ones, bring international work to Belfast, act as an advocate for local work on the international stage and move onto a constructive new footing with Queen's University.

"A new name for the festival is in the ether," she admits. "But I want the university to feel absolutely comfortable with it, because, in the excellence of its aspirations, the festival exemplifies what Queen's is about. And we should never forget that it has been its very lifeblood all these years. If the university is uncomfortable with what is proposed, we won't change it."

While some may scoff at her enthusiasm for the job, in the way Belfast people tend to when outsiders are positive about their city, her commitment cannot be doubted.

"Yes, I am enjoying myself. I love the thrill of a festival, the energy, the encounters, the excitement. If you are running a venue, as I did for many years, you don't have the opportunity to explore an idea and take it into other areas.

"It is difficult to be creative with a programme when your priority is bums on seats every night. In this role, you can put things into all kinds of spaces: parks, pubs, swimming pools, public places.

"Most of all, I want to increase the festival's international profile, shine a big spotlight on Belfast and tell the world that it is a fun, funky, challenging city in all aspects of its creative life."

The Belfast Festival at Queen's runs from Friday, October 26th, to Sunday, November 11th. More information and bookings at 048-90665577, or see the festival's website, at www.belfastfestival.com