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Egoyan's `Adoration' To Compete At Cannes

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  • Egoyan's `Adoration' To Compete At Cannes

    EGOYAN'S `ADORATION' TO COMPETE AT CANNES
    Jenny Barchfield

    Toronto Star, Canada
    April 23 2008

    PARIS-Atom Egoyan's Adoration will compete next month at this year's
    streamlined Cannes Film Festival, as will Clint Eastwood's Changeling
    and Wim Wenders' Palermo Shooting.

    Adoration, starring Toronto actors Scott Speedman and Rachel Blanchard,
    is about a young man obsessed with the idea that he is the spawn
    of two historical figures and is Egoyan's first feature length film
    since Where The Truth Lies, which also screened at Cannes.

    His 1994 film Exotica won the International Critics' Prize at the
    festival and his 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter won the Grand Jury
    Prize.

    Eastwood and Steven Soderbergh will headline the competition this year
    at the pared down version of Cannes, which features fewer big-name
    directors and more emerging voices from across the globe, organizers
    said Wednesday.

    Eastwood will show Changeling, a mystery set in 1920s Los Angeles and
    starring Angelina Jolie as the mother of a kidnapped child. Soderbergh,
    the director of the lighthearted series that began with Ocean's Eleven,
    gets serious with his four-hour-long marathon, Che, about Argentine
    revolutionary Ernesto Guevara.

    Organizers did not say which films would open and close the festival,
    which runs May 14-25. Organizers said they would announce the movies
    that snag the coveted slots later.

    In a much-anticipated premiere, Harrison Ford dons his khakis for the
    latest instalment of Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones series. Indiana
    Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull also stars Australian
    actress Cate Blanchett, and will be screened out of competition.

    Festival head Thierry Fremaux said he was thrilled Spielberg had
    chosen to premiere the movie at Cannes.

    "It's amazing," he said. "A big portion of festival-goers and
    journalists grew up with Steven Spielberg's first movies."

    Woody Allen's Spanish-set Vicky Cristina Barcelona will play out of
    competition, as will Serbian director Emir Kusturica's Maradona, a
    documentary about Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona. Kusturica
    has won the Palme d'Or, Cannes' top prize, twice, in 1985 and 1995.

    Organizers said the 61st edition of the French Riviera festival
    will mark a shift in the spirit of the event, known for its mix of
    Hollywood blockbusters and small art-house films.

    They said they had pared down the offerings in the main competition
    from 22 last year to 20 this year and nixed some of the sideline
    events to put the spotlight back on cinema.

    This year, smaller productions by lesser-known directors appear to
    have the upper hand over blockbusters. Organizers explained that
    many of the festival's favourite star directors - like Britain's
    Stephen Frears (The Queen) and Spain's Pedro Almodovar (Volver) -
    are currently working on new movies.

    The main competition lineup includes movies by art-house directors from
    Belgium, Turkey, China, France, Argentina, Brazil and Italy. Eight of
    the directors have never appeared in Cannes' main competition before.

    Brazilian director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) is showing
    Linha de Passe, the story of brothers trying to scrape their way out
    of poverty. Argentina's Lucrecia Martel makes her debut at Cannes
    with La Mujer Sin Cabeza (The Woman without a Head), which explores
    the psychology of a woman disturbed after she hits and kills a dog
    with her car.

    Award-winning Chinese director Jia Zhangke, whose Still Life took
    the top prize at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, continues to explore
    how economic expansion affects China's legions of poor. 24 City is
    about the relocation of an aircraft factory and its workers in the
    southwestern Chinese city Chengdu.

    American screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) makes his
    directorial debut with Synechdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour
    Hoffman.

    Germany's Wenders, who won the Palme d'Or for his melancholic 1984
    movie Paris, Texas, will screen The Palermo Shooting, a drama with
    a multilingual, multinational cast.

    Palme d'Or laureates Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who took top honours
    at the 1999 and 2005 festivals, are back with Le Silence de Lorna
    (Lorna's Silence). Known for their harrowing portraits of those on
    the margins of society, the Belgian brothers tell the story of the
    marriage between a drug addict and an illegal immigrant.

    In a festival first, an animated documentary has been selected for
    the main competition. Israeli writer-director Ari Folman's Waltz with
    Bashir grapples with the 1982 massacre of Palestinians by Christian
    militia members in Lebanon.

    Sean Penn, the American actor-director, leads the jury, which also
    includes actress Natalie Portman. The Palme d'Or and other awards
    will be announced May 25.

    Though festival regular Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) is not
    presenting a new movie, the 1994 Palme d'Or laureate will give a
    master class on moviemaking to students and film buffs.
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