65th Cannes Film Festival: The Contenders

This year's official selection of the world's "most glamorous and most competitive" film fest is a cream-of-the-crop list of world class auteurs and newcomers.

On one hand, we have the newest offerings from previous Palme d'Or winners Abbas Kiarostami (1997's Taste of Cherry), Michael Haneke (2009's The White Ribbon), and politically minded Irish filmmaker Ken Loach (2006's The Wind That Shakes the Barley). Also, French cinema heavyweights Jacques Audiard (2009's Grand Prix winner and Oscar nominee A Prophet), French nouvelle vague helmer Alain Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour; Last Year at Marienbad; Mon Oncle d'Amerique; 2009's Wild Grass), and Leos Carax (1999's head-scratching Pola X and 1989's Juliette Binoche starrer Lovers on a Bridge) will launch their new works alongside Korean masters Hong Sang-soo (Woman in the Future of Man; A Tale of Cinema; 2010 Un Certain Regard winner HaHaHa; 2011's The Day He Arrives) and Im Sang-soo (2010's The Housemaid remake). Even the former jury head (and 1996 Special Jury Prize winner for Crash) David Cronenberg (A History of Violence) will premiere his latest project - the Robert Pattinson starrer Cosmopolis).

On the other horizon, contemporary filmmakers Lee Daniels (2009's Oscar winning Precious), Jeff Nichols (last year's apocalyptic drama Take Shelter), Andrew Dominik (the 2007 Brad Pitt starrer The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries; Central Station; 2007's Best Actress winner Linha de passe), Matteo Garrone (2008's Grand Prix honoree Gomorrah), and Cristian Mungiu (2007's Palme d'Or winning 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days) will unveil their new projects; Daniels, Nichols, and Dominik (along with Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah, Danish Dogme wunderkind Thomas Vinterberg, and Aussie helmer John Hillcoat of 2009's The Road) will vie for the Palme d'Or for the first time. (Filmmakers-provocateurs Carlos Reygadas of 2005's controversial Battle in Heaven and 2007 Jury Prize co-winner Silent Light), Ulrich Seidl of Dog Days and Import/Export fame,and Russia's Sergei Loznitsa - 2010's bleak character study My Joy, meanwhile, received their second and third Best Film nods respectively.) Expect lots of famous Hollywood faces both young (Rob. Pat.; Zac Efron in Daniels' The Paperboy; Kristen Stewart in Salles' Jack Kerouac adaptation On The Road), beautiful Oscar winning Best Actresses (Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy; Reese Witherspoon in Nichols' romance drama Mud; Marion Cotillard in Audiard's Rust and Bone); handsome (Brad Pitt in Dominik's Killing Them Softly; Matthew McConnaughey in Mud and Paperboy); and legendary (Oscar winner Juliette Binoche in Cosmopolis). Wes Anderson's (The Royal Tenenbaums; The Darjeeling Limited) star-studded Moonrise Kingdom (an official selection entry) will open the festival, while the late French director Claude Miller's final film Therese Desqueyroux will officially close the event. (2001's Palme d'Or winner The Son's Room) will head the Competition Jury.)  The only noticeable problem: there are no films directed by women in the competition! (Last year's line-up included four including first time contenders Julia Leigh and Lynne Ramsay.)

Beauty and talent (not to mention politics) indeed reign over the Riviera this year, the first to feature eight English language entries in the official competition. Bonne chance!