21/03/2005 - After the Italian actresses Monica Bellucci and Laura Morante, it is now a Belgian star, Cécile de France, who will be the Master of Ceremonies for the 58th Festival de Cannes

After the Italian actresses Monica Bellucci (2003) and Laura Morante (2004), it is now a Belgian star, Cécile de France, who will be the Master of Ceremonies for the 58th Festival de Cannes (11th-22d May 2005). Born in 1976, the actress made her début in feature films in 2001, and did not stop since then, going from success to success. L’auberge espagnole by Cédric Klapish, for instance, earned her a Cesar Award as female shooting-star 2003. For that matter, the French public will see her again soon in a sequel of L’auberge espagnole called Les Poupées russes,which will be released on the 15th of June.

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At almost 50 days from the opening ceremony, rumours are spreading in all directions concerning potential candidates to the official competition. The most obvious titles are, it seems, Gus Van Sant’s The Last Days, the Dardenne brothers’L’enfant, Lars von Trier’s Manderlay [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Dominik Moll’s Lemming, Danis Tanovic’s L’Enfer, Michael Haneke’s Hidden, and Patrice Chereau’s Gabrielle. Other films are recurrently mentionned as good candidates : Thomas Vinterberg’s Dear Wendy, Terence Mallick’s The New World, the Larrieux brothers’ Peindre ou faire l’amour, Pan Nalin’s Valley of Flowers, David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, François Ozon’s Le temps qui reste, Bent Hammer’s Factotum, Isabelle Coixet’s The Secret Life of Words, and Marco Tullio Giordana’s Quando sei nato non puoi nasconderti. These forecasts will be proved right or wrong when the official list will be published, in about a month.

(Translated from French)