THE Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) celebrates its sixth year this week. For anyone even remotely familiar with the first, launched back in 1997, it's obvious there's been a great deal of growth in the interim.

"One of the stories of this Festival over the last three years in particular is about growth - both the size of the Festival and the body of the films," explained Duncan Hall, the Festival's deputy director.

"We have 72 films this year from 17 countries. That's an increase from 55 films a year ago. But I don't expect we'll have 100 films next year, I think we've found a good size for us. We think our film programme this year is just tremendous. We've been told by people that it's really hard to choose which ones to go and see - there are so many and there are so many good ones."

Having the right contacts, he added, has also proved useful. Many of the films to be screened were obtained through members of BIFF's International Advisory Board.

"We're really seeing contributions by our International Advisory Board this year. The board was set up two years ago. And they've been really helpful this year, particularly in obtaining films for us. For example, Timothy Burrill is the executive producer of The Pianist, and he secured that film for us and he's coming here to introduce it.

"Mark Litwak, who's on our advisory board, has secured Dunsmore for us, which is an international premiere, on Saturday night. David Poland, on our advisory board, has secured a couple of films from Paramount Classics; and Tom Bernard has provided Respiro and Laurel Canyon and our closing night film, Owning Mahowny.

"So one of the things that I guess, for us, is really encouraging is that we've been able to forge relationships over the first five Festivals."

That BIFF is devoid of the constant networking and high energy constantly sometimes present in larger festivals is a plus for many of the artists, he added.

"The Festival experience in Bermuda for people who travel from abroad is very positive. It's a very welcoming environment for film-makers.

"People here are very interested in art in all forms. They stay behind after films for question-and-answer sessions and ask some really interesting questions that show they care about art and the film-making process and we hear time and time again from the film-makers that they're not treated like a product at our Festival, they're treated like artists and they feel welcomed and respected.

"That's a feeling largely produced by our audiences in Bermuda. What happens is all those people who have positive experiences at the Festival go away and become ambassadors for us."

There was a trickle-down effect as a result, said Mr. Hall. With artists saying such encouraging things about Bermuda and the Festival, other artists were becoming interested.

"We're finding better films as we go along, and better films are finding us. People are coming to us with films like Spellbound, a documentary nominated for an Academy Award, but eclipsed by Bowling for Columbine. It's a fantastic film, it's screening here twice.

"The producer, Sean Welch, is coming - and that's a film that found us. And it's happening, in that way, more and more often.

"It's astonishing. In our first year, we had 60 submissions and we had 22 films in the Festival. We get far more than 300 submissions now, and the quality's just amazing. There are films in the Festival now that we could only dream of attracting in our first year.

"What's helped is that we're very well supported in the community. We've decided to go to Southside all week - that affords an opportunity for more people to see films and more films to be seen. We're not only suppported by the film-goers, the support that we get from the corporate community and our patrons, is really incredible.

"It's what allows us to put on the Festival."