THR.com has the lowdown on the list of competitors for the Palm d’Or for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Familiar faces in the famous fest’s official selection — including
Abbas Kiarostami, Takeshi Kitano, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Mike
Leigh and Lee Chang-Dong — will screen their films alongside
Gallic filmmakers Bertrand Tavernier, Xavier Beauvois, Mathieu
Amalric and Franco-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb. The Competition will feature 16 films from 13 countries. Forty-six
features had been chosen for the full selection as of Thursday’s
conference, with “six or seven more” to come in the coming days.
Also, Terence Malick’s Tree of Life is still being worked on in hopes that a cut can be readied for the festival. Of the directors mentioned, former winner Abbas Kiarostami will be back in competition with his The Certified Copy, as will Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu with Biutiful and Daniele
Luchetti with La Nostra Vita. Russia’s Nikita Mikhalkov will be in on the action with his Utomlyonnye Solntsem 2. Mike
Leigh’s Another Year, starring Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton is also in competition. French actor Mathieu Amalric will be competing with his Tournee. Ridley Scott will open the fest with his Robin Hood.
This all comes in the wake of a boycott by several agencies, including Reuters, Getty Images,
the AFP and AP due to restrictions imposed on their 2010 fest
coverage. There are a lot more details to be found in the article on competitors, judges and other planned screenings. You can click over here for the full rundown. The 63rd Cannes Film Festival kicks off May 12th.