* Buyers may be excused for momentary confusion over some of the Australian films being screened at Cannes this year: Passion, Strange Fits Of Passion and Strange Planet are three of them. No such confusion with The Craic, though - except perhaps that no one will understand the title. As for Siam Sunset, buyers should be aware that this film is not made in Thailand...

* The UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has re-scheduled his diary to get an earlier flight out of London so he can see Jazmin Dizdar's comedy Beautiful People, which screens in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival on Tuesday 18 May at 4.30pm in the Salle Debussy. A warm-hearted comedy in which refugees from war-torn Bosnia transform the lives of a number of Londoners, the film is a candidate for the Camera D'Or.s

* Jan Erik Holst, managing director production/international relations of the Norwegian Film Institute, arrived in Cannes today, ready to continue his 50th birthday celebrations, which began on his actual day of birth - 10 April - in New York, and still haven't ended. "If this goes on, I will end up in the Guinness Book Of Records for the longest birthday fete ever," he said.

Attending the first Norwegian Film Week, at New York's Lincoln Center ("Actually, it wasn't easy to get there," he remarked), Holst's 50th was duly marked at a proper dinner party. Two days later, on his return to Norway, Scandinavian Airlines staged a surprise reception at its SAS Business Lounge to honour Holst, who has enough EuroBonus points to go to the moon.

Ambassador to Norwegian cinema - and chairman of Scandinavian Films, too - Holst was cheered by the staff of the Norwegian Film Institute upon returning to work. The next day, his own department - production/international relations - arranged a breakfast party for him. And the following week, the institute had to organise an official gathering to accommodate industry congratulators.

Holst - who has modestly declared that instead of all the razzmatazz he would rather have watched his favourite Orson Welles movies - Citizen Kane and The Third Man - studied law, before his passion for cinema took him to Stockholm to do film studies. He has been in the business for 30 years, with the last 10 spent in the director's seat of the department which is the face of Norwegian cinema abroad.

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Joke of the day

Ten people are shipwrecked on a desert island: two Danes, two Finns, two Icelanders, two Norwegians and two Swedes. After one week the two Danes have fallen passionately in love. After two weeks the two Norwegians have set up a liquor distillery. After three weeks a Finn asks, "What time is it?", and the other responds, "You are talking too much." After four weeks one Swede addresses the other, "I do not think we have been properly introduced. My name is Svensson." And after five weeks the Icelanders are ready with a feature film version of the whole event, produced with support from the five institutes, DR-TV, YLE, RUV-TV, NRK, SVT Drama, the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Filmfšrderung Nordrhein-Westphalen, Media II and Eurimages.