DALLAS (AP) _ The American Film Institute has announced the creation of a new international film festival in Dallas. The AFI Dallas International Film Festival is scheduled for March 22 to April 1 and is expected to feature dozens of international films, documentaries and shorts. Many are to be shown on 16-metre-wide, high-definition outdoor screens that organizers say are the largest in the country.

"It will be a major international film festival with more than 150 films and 200 screenings," festival founder and prominent advertising consultant Liener Temerlin said Wednesday. He said the aim is to make it "one of the nation’s pre-eminent film festivals."

Michael Cain, an AFI graduate and founder of the city’s Deep Ellum Film Festival, will serve as artistic director. Dallas is home to several smaller film festivals, the largest being the USA Film Festival, which showed about 35 films this year.

"We add ours, hoping to make Dallas a city of film festivals," Cain said.

AFI, which has run the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival for 20 years, trains filmmakers and presents a prestigious lifetime achievement award each year.