May 12, 2008, 11:48 GMT
Cannes - Cannes film frenzy is set to begin this week with Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles' apocalyptic Blindness given the honour of opening world's leading movie festival on Wednesday.
The director of The Constant Gardener and City of God, Meirelles' latest film stars American actress Julianne Moore as the only person able to see in a town hit by an outbreak of blindness.
Apart from Blindness' topliners Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal, A-list celebrities such as Angelina Jolie (with husband Brad Pitt in tow), Harrison Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joaquin Phoenix, Shia LaBeouf and Scarlett Johansson are expected to turn up for gala screenings in Cannes.
But then for 11 days the small Cote d'Azur resort and its famous beachfront promenade become the centre of the global movie universe with the 61st festival preparing to roll out the red carpet for the world's leading stars.
'I feel as happy as I feel nervous with that space they have given us,' said Meirelles, who joins Lucrecia Martel and Pablo Trapero from Argentina and fellow Brazilian Walter Salles in a big Latin American line-up among the 22 films in Cannes' main competition this year.
Legendary French star Catherine Deneuve might also make an appearance at the festival where her latest film, A Christmas Tale, is part of the main competition.
Unlike Venice, which is held as autumn arrives, or Berlin, which is mounted during the ice and gloom of winter, Cannes celebrates moviemaking just as summer dawns on the French Riviera - complete with yachts bobbing on a glistening Mediterranean and a dazzling round of social events.
It is little wonder that almost everyone in the world of cinema - from Gary Cooper, Kirk Douglas through to a bikini-clad Brigitte Bardot and Jean Cocteau - has at one point found the lure of Cannes irresistible.
Altogether about 60 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 movies for the fest.
But despite an emphasis on new upcoming directors and a rather slimmed down US presence in Cannes this year, Hollywood is once again likely to lead the glamour offensive on the Croisette, the beachfront boulevard that cuts through the heart of the festival.
Besides new pics from Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh and Woody Allen, a highlight of the festival is likely to be the premiere of Steven Spielberg's fourth movie about the archaeologist-turned- adventure hero, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
US actor-turned-director and screenwriter Sean Penn heads up Cannes seven-member jury and American director Barry Levinson's What just happened? about a Hollywood producer is to bring the festival to a close. What just happened? stars Robert De Niro
Coming 40 years after a group of prominent filmmakers sided with rebellious 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.
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