TCM planning great directors festival

LOS ANGELES, April 22 (UPI) -- Turner Classic Movies will pay tribute to 52 of cinema's greatest directors with a month-long festival in June, the U.S. network said.

The festival will feature nearly 350 films, including the works of classic directors like Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford; mavericks like Orson Welles, Billy Wilder and Blake Edwards; international icons like Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa; and modern masters like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Also included in the festival will be several memorable documentaries about and interviews with renowned directors, TCM said in a news release.

"The enormous response we receive each August with our Summer Under the Stars festival, which features a different actor or actress' work each day, inspired us to create this expansive showcase of the world's greatest film directors," TCM's Charles Tabesh said in a statement. "With this festival, we are once again able to utilize TCM's tremendous roster of film titles to create an in-depth, authoritative examination and celebration of a particular aspect of cinema."