With Grindhouse still drowning in its own gory squalor, Quentin Tarantino can't have been having the best couple of weeks. However, the news that his half of the box-office plummeting double-bill is up for the top prize at Cannes this year, will no brighten his mood. The director's car-crazy slasher flick, Death Proof, will go up against the likes of the Coen Brother's No Country For Old Men, David Fincher's killer-thriller Zodiac and Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, when the festival kicks off on May 16.
Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Tim Roth, Ed Harris and David Strathairn all star in Wong Kar Wai's English language debut, My Blueberry Nights, which is set to open the sunny proceedings, whilst Canadian helmer Denys Arcand will present his L'Âge des Ténèbres at the Cannes finale.
Following his 2004 triumph with Farenheit 911, hirsute politician-botherer Michael Moore will also bring his new healthcare documentary Sicko to the French Riviera, no doubt with a few bags of controversy in tow, and Michael Winterbottom flies a somewhat lonely British flag with his A Mighty Heart screening out of competition.
Check out the official Cannes poster and full line-up details below:
CANNES 2007: OFFICIAL SELECTION
OPENER: My Blueberry Nights - Hong Kong, Wong Kar Wai
CLOSER: The Age of Darkness - Canada, Denys Arcand
IN COMPETITION
Une Vieille Maitresse - France, Catherine Breillat
Les Chansons d'amour - France, Christophe Honore
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - France, Julian Schnabel
Auf der anderen Seite des Lebens - Turkey, Fatih Akin
No Country For Old Men - U.S., The Coen Brothers
**Zodiac **- U.S., David Fincher
We Own the Night - U.S., James Gray
Mogari No Mor - Japan, Naomi Kawase
Promise Me This - Serbia, Emir Kusturica
Secret Sunshine - South Korea, Lee Chang-dong
4 luni, 3 saptamini si 2 zile - Romania, Cristian Mungiu
Tehilim - France, Raphael Nadjari
Stellet licht - Mexico, Carlos Reygadas
Persepolis - France, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
Import/Export - Austria, Ulrich Seidl
**Alexandra **- Russia, Alexander Sokurov
Death Proof - U.S., Quentin Tarantino
The Man From London - Hungary, Bela Tarr
Paranoid Park - U.S., Gus Van Sant
The Banishment - Russia, Andrey Zvyagintsev
OUT OF COMPETITION - GALA SCREENINGS
**Sicko **- U.S., Michael Moore
Ocean's Thirteen - U.S., Steven Soderbergh
A Mighty Heart - U.K., Michael Winterbottom