US director Spike Jonze's Her will be one of the hotly awaited premieres at the Rome film festival, including movies starring Scarlett Johansson and Christian Bale, the festival's director said Monday.

Marco Mueller, formerly the head of the Venice film festival, on Monday unveiled a lineup for November featuring Brazilian, Chilean, Iranian, Japanese, Mexican and Portuguese films.

Of the 18 films in competition, 17 are world or international premieres, with a strong American and Italian presence in particular.

US director James Gray, best known for his 2007 crime drama We Own the Night, will head up the jury for the festival, which runs November 8 to 17.

Mueller said there was no overriding theme linking the films selected. "We chose the ones that moved us, that spoke to our hearts, our guts," he said.

Jonze's Her, already a favorite with critics granted a first look at New York's film festival this month, stars Joaquin Phoenix as a Los Angeles-based man who gets a new operating system on his mobile phone that answers his daily questions.

As the voice - played by Johansson - becomes less machine-like and more human he develops an infatuation for it in a wryly comic tale which questions our increasingly intimate relationships with technology.

Scott Cooper's US thriller Out of the Furnace - produced by Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio - will also have its international premier at the festival.

Starring Bale - of Batman fame - Casey Affleck and Willem Dafoe, it tells the tale of two brothers dreaming of a better life in the poverty-hit Rust Belt, who end up drawn into a spiral of violence with a ruthless gang.

AFP