The sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival, which opened in New York Wednesday, will showcase 157 features and 88 shorts from 47 countries and territories, including four Chinese films.

The 12-day festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, his producing partner, Jane Rosenthal and her husband, entrepreneur Craig Hatkoff, to help economically and culturally revitalize Lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks.

This year, the festival will present films covering a wide range of topics, such as war, environment, love, women, family, dream, arts, music, and sports.

The films to be presented were selected from 4,550 film submissions, and 73 films will make their world premieres at the festival.

Among the four participating Chinese films, Li Yu's Lost in Beijing, and Jia Zhangke's Still Life will compete for the World Narrative Competition.

Wang Quan'an's Tuya's Marriage, which won the Golden Bear for best film in Berlin this February, will be in the spotlight at Tribeca. The Matrimony, directed by Teng Huatao, is a midnight thriller.

Because of its origin, the festival has always highlighted films that deal with post-Sept. 11?issues like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Several films, such as Beyond Belief, and I Am An American Soldier: One Year in Iraq with the 101st Airborne, will be shown this year.

The festival's free outdoor screening series, called the Tribeca Drive-in, will offer to the public three films suitable for all ages, including Planet B-Boy, a documentary about break dancing in the world.

A new addition this year will be sports films. Sponsored by ESPN, Tribeca will present 14 premieres of sports-related films, as well as a screening of the baseball classic The Natural.

Sports legend and social activist Billie Jean King and former New York Giants running back and correspondent on "The Today Show," Tiki Barber, will serve as ambassadors for the festival.

(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2007)