MADRID (AFP) - The next edition of Spain's San Sebastian film festival, the oldest and most prestigious in the Spanish-speaking world, will feature a retrospective of Japanese film noir, organisers said Friday.

Fourty Japanese film noir movies, including Shohei Imamura's 1958 "Endless Desire" and Takeshi Kitano's 1987 "Violent Cop", will be screened at the 56th edition of the festival which will be held between September 18 and 27.

"Japanese film noir skillfully endowed its detective stories with a national touch: the gangster sense of honour, the patient research work carried out by the police, the torment of the outcast criminal or the portrayal of a society badly hit by post-war chaos," organisers said in a statement.

"The 'Japan in Black' retrospective permits an overview in this parallel history of a Japanese cinema unscreened at Western film festivals and clubs, yet enthusiastically consumed by local audiences," it added.

The festival will also feature a retrospective of 41 feature films and two shorts by Italian director Mario Monicelli, who is considered a master of satirical black comedy.

Among the titles selected are his 1950 "A Dog's Life" and his 1968 "The Girl with a Pistol".

Hong Kong-born director Wayne Wang's "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers", about the tensions that follow when a Chinese widower visits his recently divorced daughter in the United States, won the best film award at the last edition of the festival in September 2007.

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