Lights, camera, action...

The poster for the 64th Festival de Cannes celebrates the fabulous legs of Faye Dunaway. Both the photographer and his muse will be at the festival this year copyright: Jerry Schatzberg, Artwork: H5 (M. Lelièvre, B. Parienté)

The first major news was released as we rolled into 2011: Robert de Niro was announced as President of the Jury. The American actor-director has held the position on two previous occasions (in the 1980s) and has also starred in two Palme d'Or winners: Taxi Driver (1976) and The Mission (1986). "The Cannes Film Festival is a rare opportunity for me as it is one of the oldest and best in the world," said the 67-year-old Oscar winner and co-founder of New York's Tribeca Film Festival. He added that he knew the task of judging would not be easy but that he was honoured to be chosen. Among those he will be presiding over on the jury will be actors Jude Law and Uma Thurman.

Following De Niro, the names of the other jury presidents dribbled out. French director Michel Gondry (Human Nature, Tokyo!) would judge the Short Films and the Cinefoundation competitions. Overseeing the Un Certain Regard (20 films chosen for the originality of the ideas as well as the aesthetic): Emir Kusturica. The Serbian filmmaker is a two times winner of the Palme d'Or and is known for his controversial views on the wars in the former Yugoslavia. The Camera d'Or - for the best first film in the Official Selection, during Critics' Week or Directors' Fortnight - has Korean screenwriter and director Bon Joon-ho at the helm.

The festival would, of course, be nothing without the films themselves and the highly anticipated Official Selection for 2011’s main competition was announced on April 14th. Among the ‘chosen’ was La Piel que Habito, the latest feature from the much feted Spanish director Pedro Almodòvar. Also making the final cut is Melancholia from Lars von Trier, the love-him-or-hate-him Dane who sent shock waves up and down the Croisette in 2009 with the sexually explicit Antichrist. It has, however, been Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, that has been causing the biggest pre-festival buzz. Several weeks before April 14th, a ‘will it or won’t it’ debate raged on the Internet over whether or not the long awaited fifth movie from the American would get its world premiere at Cannes. This was clearly the intention of its US distributor but then it was leaked that Icon Entertainment, the film’s UK distributor, had different ideas and were planning on releasing the movie in British cinemas a week earlier on May 4th. This was denied by the foreign sales agent, Summit Entertainment and more recently how ready the film even is for Cannes has been questioned, despite its presence in the Official Selection.

The sole British filmmaker in competition this year is Scottish director Lynne Ramsay, whose adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, is up for the Un Certain Regard.

Screening outside of competition will include big Hollywood hitters The Beaver, directed by and starring Jodie Foster, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. And there is the opening film, of course, which this year sees Cannes regular Woody Allen reveal his latest, Midnight in Paris, at exactly the same time as it hits cinemas across France, allowing the public to see it along with the stars. The movie is hot news in France, largely because it sees the acting debut of First Lady, Carla Bruni. At the opening ceremony an honourary Palme d’Or will also be presented to Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci.

Post opening night and other big events this year will be an evening dedicated to actor Jean-Paul Belmondo (May 17th) and the screening of a movie from Shekhar Kapoor, which brings together the most beautiful moments in the history of Indian musical films and has been made especially for the Festival de Cannes. Alors, with the presidents, jurors and films all accounted for, all that remains now is for the fun and games to commence.

HM