‘The New World’ to open desert film fest

“THE New World,” Terrence Malick’s sweeping interpretation of the Pocahontas/John Smith story, will raise the curtain on the Palm Springs International Film Festival on Jan. 5.

The famously private Malick isn’t expected to attend, but Q’orianka Kilcher, who plays the Native American princess, will be there. It’s not clear whether she will be joined by Colin Farrell, who plays Smith. He checked into rehab recently.

Positioned in the midst of awards season, the Palm Springs festival traditionally emphasizes world cinema, and this year’s offering includes 51 submissions for the foreign-language film Oscar, among them four Golden Globe nominees: Hany Abu-Assad’s “Paradise Now,” Chen Kaige’s “The Master of Crimson Armor,” Christian Carion’s “Merry Christmas” and Gavin Hood’s “Tsotsi.”

The late Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s “White Countess,” which stars Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave, and Lars Von Trier’s “Manderlay,” with Bryce Dallas Howard, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe and Lauren Bacall, will also screen, as will Kevin James Dobson’s “The Virgin of Juarez,” in which Minnie Driver plays a reporter investigating the murders of more than 400 women in a border town.

Documentaries also benefit from the festival’s elevated awards profile, and this year is no exception. Featured among more than a dozen selections are two movies yet to appear in L.A. theaters -- “Darwin’s Nightmare” and Sundance prizewinner “After Innocence,” about wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence.

Terrence Howard, who has earned critical acclaim for his work in “Crash,” “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ ” and “Hustle & Flow,” will be on hand two nights later to accept the festival’s Rising Star Award. Other celebrity kudos recipients include Shirley MacLaine, Jake Gyllenhaal, Charlize Theron and producer Michael London.

The festival runs through Jan. 16. For more information, go to www.psfilmfest.org.