By Jerry Fink

Mon, Jun 4, 2007 (7:08 a.m.)

Who: CineVegas 2007

Gala: 7 p.m. Wednesday for the red carpet kickoff

Festival: Thursday through June 16

Where: Brenden Theatres, The Palms, and other venues

Tickets: $10, $9 for students and seniors for individual films; packages range from $100 for student passes and $125 for locals to $525

Info: 992-7979, 888-883-4278 or cinevegas. com

Loren Cass (directed by Chris Fuller)

The Fifth Patient (Amir Mann)

Have Love, Will Travel (Dan Peterson)

The Living Wake (Sol Tryon)

LOOK (Adam Rifkin)

Throwing Stars (Todd Breau)

The CineVegas Film Festival, which kicks off Wednesday, gets more ambitious each year.

This year's recipe:

Start with the star power of Wednesday's red carpet gala. Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Ellen Barkin and Andy Garcia tout their latest, "Ocean's Thirteen," and raise money for charity.

Stir in independent spirit - from a 21-year-old actor stepping behind the camera to create a wise-beyond-his-years political film, to Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins returning to indies as a director.

Top it with international flavor - the potent force of Mexico's independent filmmakers.

The nine-year-old festival gets into full swing Thursday and runs through June 16 at the Palms, 10 days during which fans can view dozens of films and attend panel discussions, tributes and parties.

"The quality of the submissions just gets better and better," says Robin Greenspun, CineVegas president and a member of the family that owns the Las Vegas Sun. "We have filmmakers who hold their films for CineVegas now, instead of having them go to other places first. That's pretty big."

When CineVegas launched in 1998, it was one of three local film festivals along with the short-lived Blue Sky International Film Festival and the Las Vegas International Film Festival.

Today, CineVegas stands alone.

"Each year, in spite of any shortcomings, it did better and better and got a little more recognition," Greenspun says. "When we brought Trevor Groth on, all of a sudden it just exploded. Then when we brought Dennis Hopper on and started working with him to get honorees, we just went from zero to 100 as far as the people who are attending and then, with Trevor's expertise, the kind of films we were attracting. It just changed so quickly.

"We do have to be careful about the growth. We have to plan very carefully if we are to keep the feeling of the festival. If it gets too large and too out of hand we lose the intimacy that CineVegas has always had, so it's a dilemma."

Imagine having to struggle with too much success.

"I'm comfortable with the achievements," Groth says. "But we will continue to grow."

Groth, senior programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, has taken over as CineVegas' artistic director since 2002. Under his guidance, CineVegas has become known as "The World's Most Dangerous Film Festival."

Some of that comes from Hopper, the rebellious anti-star of such films as "Easy Rider" and "Blue Velvet." Hopper won the Marquee Award at CineVegas 2003 and was so impressed that he became - and remains - chairman of the festival's Creative Advisory Board.

This year 1,000 films were submitted to CineVegas. Groth narrowed that down to about 35. He picked some of the festival highlights:

Groth says, "Opening with a classic Vegas film and closing with a comedy about an alcoholic hit-man is the perfect way to bookend this year's festival."