US distributors aren't generally known as shrinking violets but John Maybury's Love Is The Devil (showing in Un Certain Regard) seems to have upset at least a couple of them. Two of them fled a recent market screening in disgust and one even reportedly threw up. The problem, it seems, was a scene showing East End petty gangster George Dyer (Daniel Craig) obsessively scrubbing his fingernails. "I saw the scene as a very standard, textbook example of a psychosis," remarks Maybury, "but the two Americans apparently saw it as a prelude to a fist fucking scene."

Maybury's film, which charts the stormy relationship between Dyer and the artist Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi), is being released in the US in the early autumn by Strand. Love Is The Devil will be launched in six major US cities with black-tie screenings at the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian and various other prestigious art institutions. (In other words, the film will quite literally be shown in the "art houses.") Maybury says he is happy with the Strand strategy. "I never expected them to premier it at drive-ins in Arkansas."

The right-wing press in the UK have already damned Love Is The Devil as "unsellable," which is ironic considering that it has already been snapped up in 14 territories. 

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Daily briefing

British director Alex Cox (whose 1986 punk pic Sid and Nancy is showing in Cannes as part of the tribute to Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner) was originally pencilled in to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (screening today in competition.) Cox has always been a handful for producers. In the end, although he retains a co-writing credit, he was replaced by a 'safe pair of hands.' That is not the phrase that usually springs to mind when maverick talent Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 Monkeys) is being described... GM

Never one to tackle easy, obvious or jaded subject matter, Rolf de Heer will probably go down in the history of this festival as the man whose film generated the greatest discomfort for an audience, for the best of all cinematic reasons: effective, involving filmmaking. Dance Me To My Song was conceived and co-written by Heather Rose, who was born with acute cerebral palsy. Rose also stars as the central character in the film. This unflinching work does not, however, ever become a documentary about the illness. It is a love triangle in which one of the two women is, well, behind the eight ball, let's say. And that's why it has such a discomforting, yet gripping effect. ALU

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A good place for a headline?

We need some help grasping the concept of Danehip Entertainment's Cannes ad campaign for the film, Bartender, directed by Gabe Torres. The poster hanging in – where else? – the Carlton Bar shows the star of the film, Robert Zameroski, in the expected milieu. But in place of some snappy ad copy appears the line: "This is a good place for a tag line."

It may prompt some of the pseudo-intellectuals among us to ponder its meaning, but sources tell us that it was a message from the poster's designer that, due to gremlins in the printing process, became the tag line in at least one copy 
of the poster.

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The best of times, the worst of times

Rt Hon Tom Clarke, CBE, MP: 
British Minister for Film and Tourism
A former filmmaker himself, Clarke recently co-chaired the Government's Film Policy Group with PolyGram's Stewart Till

What is the best thing about your job
I'm the first ever to do this job.

And the worst?
Having to leave the cinema!