Scottish actor Ewan Mc Gregor plays James Joyce with Irish actress Susan Lynch cast as Nora Barnacle in Nora, Pat Murphy's film which will have its world premiere on April 6th as the opening presentation of the Miller Genuine Draft 15th Dublin Film Festival.
The festival programme, which was launched at a reception in Dublin last night, will run until April 16th, when the closing film will be Lawrence Kasdan's US film, Mumford, starring Loren Dean and Hope Davis.
"We hope prospective audiences will be enthused about the programme we've assembled for their enjoyment this year," the event's new programme director, Mr Paul Taylor, said.
"We look forward to welcoming record audiences to an exciting and satisfying festival of world cinema."
The programme highlights include two films in contention for Academy Awards at next Sunday night's Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles. Boys Don't Cry, for which Hilary Swank and Chloe Sevigny have acting nominations, deals with a young woman who risks serious danger when she disguises herself as a boy in a conservative American town.
One Day in September, which has been nominated as best documentary feature in the Oscars, examines the traumatic events of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and features interviews with the families of the Israeli athletes who were murdered.
This year's festival retrospective programme pays tribute to the American film-maker Ron Shelton whose work has been preoccupied with sporting themes - baseball in Bull Durham, basketball in White Men Can't Jump, golf in Tin Cup and boxing in his new film, Play It To The Bone.
The highlights also include Vinny Murphy's Irish road movie, Accelerator, dealing with a race in stolen cars from Belfast to Dublin; actress Sofia Coppola's directorial debut with The Virgin Suicides; Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito as salesmen in the film of the play, The Big Kahuna; Julie Taymor's Titus, which transposes Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus to the 1930s and stars Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange; and Chinese director Zhang Yimou's award-winning Not One Less.
The principal venue will be UGC Cinemas (formerly Virgin) on Parnell Street in Dublin.
Advance booking opens today at the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, South William Street.