CANNES LINE-UP UNVEILED

Some familiar figures will be returning to the Cannes Film Festival next month. Among the filmmakers whose works have been selected for the competition are Jacques Audiard, Ken Loach, Michael Haneke, Walter Salles, Leos Carax, David Cronenberg, Thomas Vinterberg, Lee Daniels and Wes Anderson. Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom has also been selected as the opening-night film. Several filmmakers who were expected to compete for the Palme d’Or, were not mentioned in today’s (Thursday) announcement, although their films could be included in the list at a later date. Among them was Woody Allen’s latest, To Rome with Love. Britain’s Guardian newspaper observed that the list of films that are in competition “diverges only slightly” from a list leaked online a few weeks. At the time, Festival President Thierry Frémaux told the website Deadline.com that there were numerous errors on the list and said, “There is a code of conduct for Cannes and it must be respected. Those who don’t respect the code, will never come back to Cannes.” The films scheduled to compete at the festival and those screening out of competition feature some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, who are likely to make the red carpet an even more glamorous site than it usually is. They include Robert Pattinson (Cosmopolis), Shia LaBoeuf (Lawless), Nicole Kidman (Paperboy), Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone), and Brad Pitt (Killing Them Softly).