khan!

There's something really dizzying and wonderful about a film festival. Cinephiles, critics, journalists, filmmakers, spectators, and everyone else huddles together in what could possibly considered cinema watching in its purest form. The guided sense of the masses all focused on the moving image premiering before their open eyes. Sundance was all snow and hijinks, where as I'm sure Cannes would be all sun and French-covered tomfoolery. The 61st Cannes Film Festival cuts its glamorous figure May 14-25. The jury and films in competition were announced yesterday in Paris:

IN COMPETITION
"24 City," directed by Jia Zhangke
"Adoration," directed by Atom Egoyan
"Changeling," directed by Clint Eastwood
"Che," directed by Steven Soderbergh
"Un Conte de noel," directed by Arnaud Desplechin
"Delta," directed by Kornel Mundruczo
"Il Divo," directed by Paolo Sorrentino
"Gomorrah," directed by Matteo Garrone
"La Frontiere de l'aube," directed by Philippe Garrel
"Le Silence de Lorna," directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne
"Leonera," directed by Pablo Trapero
"Linha de Passe," directed by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas
"La mujer sin cabeza," directed by Lucrecia Martel
"My Magic," directed by Eric Khoo
"The Palermo Shooting," directed by Wim Wenders
"Three Monkeys," directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
"Serbis," directed by Brillante Mendoza
"Synecdoche, New York," directed by Charlie Kaufman
"Waltz With Bashir," directed by Ari Folman

EDIT: Fernando Meirelles's "Blindness" will open the festival and Laurent Cantet's "Entre Les Murs" and James Gray's "Two Lovers" will also screen in competition.

JURY
Sean Penn, American actor, President of the Jury
Sergio Castellitto, Italian actor and director
Natalie Portman, American actress
Alfonso Cuaron, Mexican director
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thai director
Alexandra Maria Lara, German actress
Rachid Bouchareb, French director

The names involved this year read like quite the potpourri of international cinema. However, I'm always confused as to why there are more American films in competition than most other countries. Yes, the motion picture business is big in America, but aren't there equally deserving voices from around the world that are meant to be heard? And I'm tired of the repeat names. Wim Wenders, Steven Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, and Atom Egoyan can drum up publicity at some other festival, so why choose this one where they've all had films at before? It's a shame Woody Allen never allows his films to be put in competition because that much-talked about menage-a-troisn scene in his out of competition film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", between Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, and Penelope Cruz might deserve it's own special jury prize.

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