The festival, running until 22 November, will mark the 100th anniversary of the invention of Technicolor and honour director Hal Hartley.

In Family Film, a co-production of Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany and France, Omerzu wanted to dissect the family without moralization, he told an interview with the STA.

It is a story of a family whose husband and wife go sailing, while leaving their two children at home to enjoy their freedom. When the sail boat goes under, their dog, trapped on a lonely island, becomes their only hope for survival.

The film, which premiered in San Sebastian in July and was awarded in Tokyo as the best artistic contribution, is full of unexpected turns, just like life itself, according to Omerzu. It highlights freedom, which can however become a burden if there is too much of it.

Family Film will be vying for the Kingfisher Prize in the festival's main section, dubbed Perspectives, along with another nine films.

Among them are also the winner of the Sarajevo Film Festival, Mustang by Deniz Gamte Ergüven, on the demonization of female sexuality in the conservative Turkish society and Son of Saul by Laszlo Nemes, an uncompromising account of life in a Nazi concentration camp, which bagged two prizes in Cannes this year.

To honour Technicolor's jubilee, the festival will feature a retrospective of 15 films, showing the progress of colour film through time. Among them will be classics such as The Phantom of the Opera, The Adventure of Robin Hood, The African Queen and A Fistful of Dollars.

The most popular section of the festival, Avantpremieres, will feature Home, a documentary by Slovenian Metod Pevec and The High Sun, a Slovenian-Croatian-Serbian co-production by Dalibor Matanić.

The section will also include Dheepan, this year's winner of Palme d'Or, by Jacques Audiard and Einstein in Mexico, a film by Peter Greenway.