THIS year's Cork film festival has a brand new venue in the art housed.

cinema, Kino, set up by the festival's programme director, Mick Hannigan. The event, which runs from October 6th to 13th, also will continue to use its regular venues, Cork Opera House and Triskel Arts Centre.

The festival will open with Trevor Nunn's transposition of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night to the late 19th century, with Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nigel Hawthorne" and Ben Kingsley in the leading roles. The closing film is Gillies MacKinnon's Trojan Eddie, a contemporary story of travellers in Ireland, written by Billy Roche and featuring Stephen Rea and Richard Harris.

The subjects of this year's festival focus are the British director Andrew Kotting, whose first feature, Gallivant, will be shown, and the Polish documentary maker Marcel Lozinski, described by Mick Hannigan as "without doubt the most lucid of cinematic commentators on contemporary Polish life".

In addition to Trojan Eddie, Irish interest in the festival centres on Sean Hinds's Boys' and Men, Enda Hughes's The Eliminator, John T. Davis's The Uncle Jack, Trish McAdam's Snakes And Ladders, and the Irish Italian coproduction, Spaghetti Slow. Made by Aine O Connor for Telefis na Gaeilge, Draiocht, scripted by and starring Gabriel Byrne, will have its premiere at the festival. And, as ever, a wide range of short films, Irish and international, will be shown.

Following the success of last year's centenary of cinema Grand Cafe programme, there will be another Grand Cafe programme at the FarmGate restaurant, this time showcasing eccentric early silent movies; and for insomniacs there will be another Long Night of the Short Film. From the films on offer here is a personal selection of 10, all showing in Cork Opera House unless otherwise stated.

Five of the best films on the programme which I've seen:

. Flirting With Disaster: David O. Russell's breezy, intricately plotted and hilariously funny comedy follows the snowballing confusions and mishaps when a young man (Ben Stiller) seeks out his biological parents. With Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Mary Tyler Moore, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin and George Segal (Mon 7, 8.30pm).

. The Pillow Book: Seeming so wilfully obscure in its early stages that it's sure to alienate many audiences, the new Peter Greenaway moxie eventually exerts an hypnotic hold on the patient viewer. The ubiquitous Ewan McGregor plays a bisexual English translator in Hong Kong where he meets a young Japanese woman (Vivian Wu) and allows his naked body to be used as the paper for her calligraphy (Tue 8, 6pm).

. Shine: From Australia Scott Hicks's sensitive and touching film of the gifted pianist, David Helfgott, features brilliantly filmed performance sequences and indelible portrayals by Alex Rafalowicz, Noah Taylor and Geoffrey Rush as Helfgoot at different ages, and Armin Mueller Stahl as his domineering father (Thursday 10, 8.30pm).

. Boys and Men: A riveting and unsettling 40 minute drama, written by Brian Lally and directed by Sean Hinds, of a traumatised man (Patrick Leech) who abducts the man (Conor Mullen), who sadistically bullied him when they were 12 year old schoolboys, and prepares for scarifying revenge. Showing with Draiocht (Kino. Fri 11, 11.30 am).

. I Shot Andy Warhol: Set in the late 1960s heyday of Warhol's famous Factory, Mary Harron's challenging and fascinating film features the excellent Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas, the man hating lesbian feminist who shot and seriously wounded Warhol in 1968 (Sat 12, 2pm).

And the five I most want to see;

. Floating Life: The new movie from the talented Hong Kong director, Clara Law, is a portrait of a Chinese family cut adrift from its roots when they move to Australia and try to settle into a frighteningly unfamiliar environment (Mon 7, 4pm).

. Gabbeh: Very well received on the international festival circuit this year, this Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf relates a love story as it explains the history of a gahbeh, a traditional and decorative carpet woven by a nomadic tribe (Mon 7, 6pm).

. Nico Icon: An interesting companion piece to I Shot Andy Warhol, Susanne Ofteringer's documentary examines the restless life of Nico, the lead singer with the Velvet Underground and an inspiration to Warhol and many others, up to her death in Ibiza in 1988 (Kino, Wed 9, 8pm).

. Gallivant: Highly praised at the Edinburgh Film Festival in August, the first feature film by Andrew Kotting is a road movie follows the director himself, his grandmother and his daughter as they travel around the British coastline, meeting assorted characters along the way (Fri 11, 6pm).

. The Uncle Jack: The new film by Irish documentarist John T. Davis, whose work includes Shellshock Rock, Route 66 and Ho ho, is a cinematic self portrait dedicated to his uncle Jack, the cinema architect, John McBride Neill, who unwittingly gave him his means of expression film making (Sat 12, 6pm).