TEHRAN - Managing Director of Institute for Visual Media Mohammad Saeed Najafi said here Saturday that the organ has decided to buy films screened in Cannes Film Festival in a bid to broaden the choices to the Iranian public.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Cannes Film Festival, he said that the organ is trying to import interesting and popular films for the Iranian video market and the Cannes Film Festival is one of the important venues to evaluate and purchase this genre of films.

''To this end the institute has had some negotiations with foreign film producers and distributors,'' he said.

On Iran's participation at the 55th Cannes Film Festival, he said that Iran has been recognized as a country with artistic and cultural films and Cannes also bestows great respect for the Iranian films, adding that the number of Iranian films in the festival is a testimony to this.

The 55th Cannes International Film Festival opened late on Wednesday, as film stars, movie executives and thousands of fans gathered in this picturesque Riviera port to celebrate world cinema.

In all, films from 89 countries were screened at this year's festival.