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Heavyweight directors set Cannes abuzz

Cannes - Hollywood's big guns and some of independent cinema's heavyweight directors will share the limelight at this year's Cannes film festival, which opens with Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris on Wednesday.

At what critics expect to be a vintage edition of the world's biggest cinema showcase, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Penelope Cruz, Robert De Niro, Mel Gibson and Johnny Depp are all expected to walk the red carpet.

There they will be joined by darlings of the European festival circuit - Pedro Almodovar, Nanni Moretti, the Dardenne brothers, Aki Kaurismaki and Lars Von Trier - who are all vying for the coveted Palme d'Or prize for best picture.

Great expectations

And US veteran Terrence Malick is finally back in the main competition with only his fifth feature, the eagerly anticipated The Tree of Life in which Pitt and Penn star in a family saga set in the Midwest during the 1950s.

"There is a very strong buzz and great expectations," said festival general delegate Thierry Fremaux, who has come under fire in recent years for what some considered to be below-par, line-ups light on star power.

For three years the global financial crisis has dulled Hollywood's appetite for expensive marketing trips abroad, but studios appear to be hungry to wheel and deal in Cannes again.

"America is very present this year. The studios are back - professionals, agents. They are everywhere in the hotels," Fremaux told Reuters.

As luxury yachts bobbed in the harbour of the French Riviera resort under clear blue skies, last-minute preparations for the May 11-22 movie marathon were underway.

Movie posters adorned five-star hotels along the palm-lined Croisette waterfront and bars, restaurants and nightclubs geared up for a hectic two weeks of late-night, big-spending revelry.

Allen honoured

Allen's romantic comedy stars Owen Wilson and Marion Cotillard as well as French first lady Carla Bruni, raising expectations among the 4 000-strong press corps in Cannes that she will walk the red carpet. Cannes also includes biopic La Conquete (The Conquest), which portrays Bruni's husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, during his 2007 election win and the collapse of his previous marriage to Cecilia.

Women feature more prominently in the main competition than usual, although they still only account for four of 20 entries.

Scotland's Lynne Ramsay presents We Need To Talk About Kevin, based on Lionel Shriver's bestselling novel and Australian Julia Leigh directs Sleeping Beauty, described as a "haunting erotic fairy tale".

French actress/director Maiwenn Le Besco has directed Polisse about a photographer who begins an affair with a cop, and Japan's Naomi Kawase brings Hanezu No Tsuki, four years after her The Mourning Forest won the runner-up Grand Prix award in 2007.

Belgium's Dardenne brothers have a chance to become the first directors to scoop the Palme d'Or three times with The Kid With A Bike and festival favourite Almodovar will aim to lift his first Golden Palm with The Skin I Live In.

Denmark's Von Trier is back two years after his Antichrist became the most talked-about film at Cannes for years for its graphic violence and sexual content.

This time he is in competition with Melancholia, starring Kirsten Dunst as a bride celebrating her marriage as a planet threatens to collide with Earth.

Cannes features blockbuster sequels Kung Fu Panda 2 starring Jolie and Jack Black, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides with Depp and Cruz.

Economic recovery following the global financial crisis may also breath life into the giant Cannes market place where film rights are bought and sold away from the media glare.

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