May 6, 2008, 14:45 GMT
Cannes - For 11 days this month the global movie business heads for Cannes, turning the Cote d'Azur resort and its famous beachfront into the backdrop for the world's leading film festival.
Now in its 61st year, the Cannes Film Festival has not lost any of its magic, again celebrating movie-making and the cult of the celebrity with considerable style and flair.
Indeed, with A-list stars, a slew of movie premieres, high fashion and lavish parties, the Cannes film extravaganza is one of the world's great events.
This year's festival organizers have selected 22 movies for the race for Cannes' coveted Palme d'Or award with the line-up including big Hollywood blockbusters as well a large contingent of smaller art- house movies.
This year's Cannes festival is 'recentred and renewed', said festival president Gilles Jacob announcing the leading competitors, which includes filmmakers from Asia through to Turkey, Latin America and Central Europe.
Almost half the directors vying for the Palme d'Or this year have never appeared in Cannes' main competition before.
Altogether 57 films from 31 countries will be shown across all the sections at this year's festival with organizers having sifted through a staggering 1,792 full-length movies for the fest; seeing some just in the last days before the final line-up was announced.
Marking Latin America emergence as a major movie powerhouse, the Cannes' slate includes a raft of movies from the region with the festival to be opened by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles' Blindness about a city hit by a blindness pandemic.
Fellow Brazilian Walter Salles said seeing Linha de Passe, which he co-directed and which tells the story of poor aspiring footballers, as part of the Palme d'Or race 'is already a prize.'
Hollywood might have a slimmed-down presence at this year's Cannes but it is likely that its contribution could steal the show and grab the attention of the hordes of paparazzi on the Croisette, the festival's main boulevard.
Besides new pics from Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh and Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg is to present the premiere of his fourth movie about the archaeologist-turned-adventure hero, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Indeed, Hollywood is once again expected to supply much of the glamour on the Cannes red carpet this year with Angelina Jolie (husband Brad Pitt in tow), Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz expected to turn up for gala screenings.
Legendary French star Catherine Deneuve might also make an appearance at the festival where her latest film, A Christmas Take is part of the main competition.
It might be also not be too difficult to imagine the lure of what is one of France's major cultural events drawing President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni to Cannes for a night at the festival.
Coming 40 years after a group of prominent filmmakers sided with students and workers to bring the 1968 festival to an end, Cannes this month will screen the movies that were not shown at what was the 21st festival.
South East Asia is also making its presence felt at this year's festival with movies from Philippine director Brillante 'Dante' Mendoza and Singapore's Eric Khoo battling it out for the top awards. Avant-garde Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is member of the jury.
Mendoza's film Serbis (Service), which revolves around the life of a family living in a run-down movie house is the first Philippine film to be selected for Cannes' main competition in 24 years.
'I'm still on a mental high,' said Khoo about his film My Magic being selected.
Chinese director Jia Zhangke, whose unsettling portrayals of life in modern China have won him international acclaim, is returning to Cannes with his new film 24 City, which recounts the lives of workers in a factory earmarked for demolition to make for a skyscraper.
Reflecting the upheavals under way in the Korean movie business only Kim Jee Woon's The Good, the Bad, the Weird will be carrying the torch for Korea at Cannes this year - but not in the main competition.
Showcasing Italian cinema this year will be Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo about Italy's former prime minister Giulio Andreotti, who faced charges of Mafia links.
Underscoring the renewed strength of the Israeli film industry has been the nation's return again to Cannes this time with Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir, an animated documentary about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
The battle for the Palme d'Or also includes movies from filmmakers that Cannes has nurtured over the years such as Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who returns to the festival with Three Monkeys about a family fraught by lies.
US actor-turned-director Sean Penn heads up Cannes seven-member jury.
List of Films
24 City, China, Jia Zhangke
Adoration, Canada, Atom Egoyan
Blindness, Brazil, Fernando Meirelles
Changeling, US, Clint Eastwood
Che (The Argentine, Guerrilla,) Spain, Steven Soderbergh
Un Conte de noel, France, Arnaud Desplechin
Three Monkeys, Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Delta, Germany-Hungary, Kornel Mundruczo
Entre les murs, France, Laurent Cantet
Il Divo, Paolo Sorrentino, Italy
Gomorra, Italy, Matteo Garrone
La Frontiere de l'aube, France, Philippe Garrel
Leonera,' Argentina-South Korea, Pablo Trapero
Linha de Passe, Brazil, Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas
La Mujer sin cabeza, Argentina, Lucrecia Martel
My Magic, Singapore, Eric Khoo
The Palermo Shooting, Germany, Wim Wenders
Serbis, Philippines, Brillante Mendoza
The Silence of Lorna, UK-France, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Synecdoche, New York, US, Charlie Kaufman
Two Lovers, US, James Gray
Waltz With Bashir, Israel, Ari Folman
© Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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