| At the Grand Hotel Intercontinental in Paris, Pierre Viot, General
Director, and Gilles Jacob, Festival President, announced the line up for
the 51st Cannes Festival. The festival committee sifted through more than
1000 films (up by 25% since last year) and selected the 22 films that compose
the Official Selection. The festival will open on May 13 with the screening of Mike Nichols' Primary Colors (out of competition) and close on May 24 with Godzilla by Roland Emmerich - also out of competition. Among the films in competition, eleven of the filmmakers are screening at the festival for the first time and one is presenting a first film (Erick Zonca, France). Sixteen countries are represented (both in and out of competition): France (with 4 films), USA (9), Denmark (2), UK (2), Taiwan (2), Italy (2), and one film from Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Russia and Portugal. Among the habitués to Cannes, there are two previous Palme d'Or winners: Shohei Imamura and Roland Joffe, four Grand Jury Prize winners: Theo Angelopoulos, Carlos Saura, Lars Von Trier and Ken Loach, and one Camera d'Or winner: John Turturro. The jury president is Martin Scorsese and for the first time, the Jury is composed of an equal percentage of women and men: four directors, four actresses, one writer, and one singer/rapper. They will be awarding the following prizes:
In the parallel section, A Certain Regard, 24 films are being presented. This section is non-competitive; however, the six first-films in the line-up will be competing for the Camera d'Or. This prize was created in 1978 and awards the best first-time film presented at Cannes in any category. The winning film is chosen by a special Camera d'Or jury. The films in the Certain Regard selection have also been chosen by the Gan Foundation for Cinema to be in competition for the Gan special prize, which will bestow on the winning film 200,000F ($33,300) in distribution aid. The prize will be awarded on Saturday May 23. The thirteen Short Films (under 15 minutes) in competition for the Palme d'Or Short Film Award will be selected by a very French jury composed of Jury President Jean-Pierre Jeunet and jury members Emmanuelle Beart, Angela Molina, Arnaud Desplechin and Jaco Van Dormael. New to the festival this year is the Cinefondation section, which seeks to discover and support young filmmakers. The Cannes International Festival is considered an ideal place for young talent to find momentum towards their future career. The first prize winner will be guaranteed screening of his/her first feature film at a future Cannes Festival. The Cinefondation will present a selection of about twenty films from the top thirty film schools in the world. The same jury judging the short film selection will award three prizes to filmmakers in this section as well. This year's Cannes Film Festival will pay homage to producers. Profession: Producer will screen thirty films that were promoted by eleven different producers. From the USA, Roger Corman and Mike Medavoy will spotlight films by the likes of Martin Scorsese and James Cameron. Italy Dean Films will present Scola and Risi, the UK producers from Working Title will show Stephen Frears, while France's Salome Production and Claude Berri's Renn Productions will spotlight works by Alain Corneau and Jean-Jacques Annaud. Producers from Spain, Hong Kong, and Canada will complete the programming. The directors and actors from the films screening will also be present. The International Film Market will be buzzing with a record number of screenings (more than 1000) for its 38th edition, including a large number of first-films. Close to 1500 companies from more than 70 countries will be negotiating a large part of their annual business at Cannes this year. New to the film market will be the MITIC - International Market of Cinema Techniques and Innovations. During five days, this event will focus on a different theme daily: special effects, new projection techniques, DVD, digital film restoration and training with the new tools. |