The 29th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema starts Tuesday at Havana"s Karl Marx Theater with the screening of US film Redacted and a performance by Argentinean musician Fito Paez.

Directed by US filmmaker Brian de Palma, the movie, on the US-boosted bloody war against Iraq, denounces in a true story how that country has manipulated media groups and distorted reality.

Nearly 500 films will be competing this year, of them 121 in contest, the expected presentation of films from Germany, US, Great Britain, Spain, Norway, Italy, Canada, and Switzerland, as well as animated films and documentary features.

Contemporary films like ó Siempre bella ó by Portuguese Manoel de Oliveira, ó El jefe de todo esto ó by Danish Lars von Tier, ó Naturaleza muerta ó by Chinese Jia Zhang Ke, and Cuatro meses, tres semanas, dos días ó by Roman Cristian Mungiu, among others, will be also screened.

This year, the festival will be extended to the capital of 13 provinces and several municipalities of the country.

(PL)