With 40 films being screened in locations across the city for 10 days, organisers of this year's Bath Film Festival are convinced they have put together the best programme of events so far.

The 19th festival of its kind, which will begin on November 12, will showcase the best of British cinema along with a number of recent documentaries.

Workshops will also be held throughout the event with directors and film-makers visiting venues throughout Bath to meet audiences and answer questions.

The festival will kick off at Komedia with a screening of Soul Power, a 2008 Jeffrey Levy-Hinte documentary film on the legendary soul music concert staged in Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1974.

It concentrates on the 12-hour, three-night festival of musical talent from various parts of Africa, as well as the United States including James Brown, The Crusaders and B B King.

On Friday, November 13 audiences at the Little Theatre will be able to preview Steven Soderbergh's The Informant, which is due for release later next month.

The Informant, starring Matt Damon, Lucas Carroll, Eddie Jemison and Rusty Schwimmer follows the story of Mark Whitacre, a senior executive at a big American company.

Whitacre, played by Damon, agrees to act as a mole for the FBI against his company who are taking part in illegal price-fixing activities.

Soberbergh's angle seems to be that Whitacre is a delusional man whose decision to do the right thing was partly motivated by desire to help himself.

Other previews throughout the festival will include Jacques Audiaed's Cannes prize-winning prison thriller A Prophet, the Coen Brothers low-key comedy A Serious Man, Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control and Paul King's Bunny and the Bull.

Along with the films visitors will get the chance to meet those behind the screen as three-time Academy Award-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker will be in Bath for the festival at a gala preview of the newly restored print of Michael Powell's The Red Shoes.

British Playwright and director Stephen Poliakoff will also be in the city introducing his preview of Glorious 39 on Wednesday, November 18, which follows a story about the unlikely friendship between an assassin and a kind-hearted woman on the run from an abusive husband.

New directing talent will be showcased at the event including Jordan Scott, daughter of English director Ridley Scott, as her film Cracks, set in a 1930s Irish Boarding School, will be shown at the Little Theatre.

Other new talent which will be hitting a variety of venues include Marek Losey's atmospheric and genre-defying The Hide, Sophie Barthes' comedy Cold Souls, and Michael Keaton's The Merry Gentleman.

On Saturday November 21 at 7.30pm there will be free screening of Yann Arthus-Bertran's film Home at Bath Abbey. Home is an ode to the planet's beauty and its delicate harmony narrated by Glenn Close.

It is a free event which runs for about 90 minutes. You can collect free tickets from Earth From the Air shop in Stall Street or from Bath Festivals box office.

The festival runs until Saturday, November 21.

Full details are in the brochure or on the website www.bathfilm festival.org.uk.