Movers and shakers of the film world are boarding yachts or jets to head for the once sleepy Mediterranean seaside town of Cannes for a 12-day party that also serves as a film festival, with this year's lineup heavy on drama and light on humor. The 67th Cannes Film Festival gets under way on Wednesday with 18 films showing in the main competition for the Palme d'Or prize awarded by a majority female jury headed by New Zealand director Jane Campion, the only woman ever to receive the top Cannes award for her 1993 film "The Piano".
Another 20 films are in the "Un Certain Regard" strand, plus dozens more in the "Directors' Fortnight", the "Critics' Week" and other festival showcases. And, providing the customary dash of controversy, the opening film - "Grace of Monaco" - has been denounced as a "farce" by the late princess's three children.
Cannes is "insane, very intense and fun", said Canadian director David Cronenberg, a Cannes regular whose "Maps to the Stars" starring "Twilight" teen vampire series idol Robert Pattinson as a Hollywood wannabe is in competition.
British director Mike Leigh, a past winner of the Palme d'Or, whose "Mr Turner" is based on the life of the British landscape painter J.M.W. Turner, said screening a film at Cannes is "a great experience".
"I'm always delighted to be there. I think it's my fifth time in competition and I was on the jury so I'm glad to go there with something to do," he said.
For Turkish director Nuri Ceylan, whose "Winter Sleep" is in competition and whose films have regularly won awards at Cannes, "this is an opportunity to showcase the country and its film business because this is where the heart of the industry beats", his producer, Zeynep Ozbatur, told Reuters.
American director Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher" is based on the murder of a championship wrestler by an heir to the DuPont chemical fortune. "The Search" by French director Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist") is set in war-torn Chechnya.
American actor-director Tommy Lee Jones's "The Homesman" is a frontier drama starring himself and Meryl Streep while other Cannes veterans in competition include France's Jean-Luc Godard with "Adieu au Langage" and Canada's Atom Egoyan with "The Captive".
Add in 25-year-old Xavier Dolan's "Mommy", and Canada has three films in competition to two for the United States, which Cronenberg said is a bit like a victory in the two neighbors' eternal hockey rivalry.
MOSTLY "OLD EUROPE", AMERICAN ENTRIES
"The interesting thing for me is how much this lineup relies really on 'Old Europe' and America - there are a few Asian films, no German films, very few from Scandinavia and not much from Eastern Europe or Russia," said Scott Roxborough, Berlin bureau chief for The Hollywood Reporter.
"So it's a lot of familiar faces but also familiar areas - lots of French films, as you always have, a fair chunk of American films and others from places we've seen before."
But a party is a party and there is something for every taste. Cannes will host the world premiere of the "How to Train Your Dragon 2" sequel to the animation blockbuster, as well as a blast-from-the-past showing of a restored version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" cult horror classic from 1974.
The festival also is known for controversy and already has one for this year: its opening film, "Grace of Monaco", starring Nicole Kidman as American actress Grace Kelly who married Prince Rainier of Monaco and died after crashing her car in 1982 in hills above the principality, not far to the east of Cannes.
For months, the trade press has been reporting that the film's French director, Olivier Dahan, and producer Harvey Weinstein, who owns the American distribution rights, have been sparring over the final cut.
This month the Monaco royal family weighed in, calling the film a "farce". Prince Albert and his sisters - Kelly's children Caroline and Stephanie - said a trailer "confirms the totally fictional nature of this film".
Asked about the dispute last month, Thierry Fremaux, the festival's director, alluded to French law which stipulates that a film's director decides on the final cut.
"We're in France, and at Cannes, the only version is the version of the director," Fremaux said.
A whiff of scandal is good for business and Cannes has reliably produced its share ever since the 18-year-old bikinied Brigitte Bardot allowed Hollywood leading man Kirk Douglas to play with her hair in a famous 1953 photo shoot on the beach.
The festival is a media magnet and Cronenberg, who won a jury prize at Cannes in 1996 for his film-noir "Crash", says that is exactly what independent producers, like him, want.
In a telephone interview he said he would probably do at least 500 interviews in Cannes, providing publicity for his new movie the likes of which he could not get anywhere else.
"As an independent we can't afford to send the cast all over the world ... (So) it's a fantastic venue to promote a movie."
The "wow" and name-recognition factors for Cannes are what seem to set it apart.
"It has a magical ring," said British screenwriter Stephen Beresford, whose film "Pride" will be shown out of competition.
"When you ring your mum and say your film's got into a film festival, when you say 'Cannes', she knows what you mean."
电影界 的明星大腕正搭乘游艇或飞机前往曾一度沉睡的地中海海滨小镇——戛纳，参加为期十二天的电影节盛宴，今年入围的竞赛片重点是情节剧而非幽默剧。第67届戛 纳电影节将于本周三如约开幕，18部入围主竞赛单元的影片将角逐今年的金棕榈奖。本届评委会成员多是女性，新西兰导演珍·坎皮恩（Jane Campion）担任本届电影节评委会主席。1993年她已凭借影片《钢琴课》荣获金棕榈奖，成为迄今为止唯一获得过戛纳电影节最高奖项的的女性导演。
另有20部影片入选“一种关注单元”，此外超过12部影片在“导演双周” 、“影评人周 ”以及其他影展中播出，一如既往引发热议，如开幕电影——《摩纳哥王妃》，遭到已故王妃三个孩子的谴责，称其为一场“闹剧”。
加拿大导演大卫·柯南伯格，戛纳电影节上的常客，称戛纳电影节“疯狂、激烈却有趣”。他的新作《星座》入围主竞赛单元，主演罗伯特·帕丁森 （Robert Pattinson）（《暮光之城》少年吸血鬼系列影片的主演），出演一个好莱坞明星的追崇者。
英国导演迈克·李（Mike Leigh）是曾经的金棕榈奖得主，他的参赛电影《透纳先生》演绎了英国风景画家约瑟夫•玛罗德•威廉•透纳（J.M.W. Turner）的一生。他说在戛纳电影节上放映电影是一种“很棒的体验。”
“我总是很高兴地参加戛纳电影节。我想这是我第五次入选正式竞赛单元。我还担任过评委，所以我很高兴可以在电影节上有事可做。”
土耳其导演努里·比格·锡兰的作品《冬眠》 入围主竞赛单元，他是戛纳电影节的获奖专业户。其制片人泽伊内普·奥兹巴特（Zeynep Ozbatur）告诉路透社记者：“这是个展现国家和电影产业的机会，因为这是电影人为之心潮澎湃的地方。”
美国导演贝尼特·米勒的竞赛片《狐狸猎手》是根据杜邦化学集团继承人谋杀一位奥运金牌摔跤手的真实故事改编而成。
美国演员同时也是导演汤米·李·琼斯（Tommy Lee Jones）自导自演的影片《送乡人》入围主竞赛单元，奥斯卡影后梅丽尔·斯特里普也将出演，该片是关于美国拓荒时期的情节片。同时入围的还有法国名导让吕克-戈达尔的作品《再见语言》和加拿大导演阿托姆·伊戈扬的《人质》。
此外还有25岁加拿大导演哈维尔·多兰的竞赛片《妈咪》。本届戛纳电影节有三部加拿大影片入围主竞赛单元，而美国有两部入围。加拿大鬼才导演大卫·柯南伯格说入围主竞赛单元有点儿像两个邻居参加曲棍球比赛，其中一方获得了胜利。
主力军来自“老欧洲”和美国
《好莱坞记者报》柏林分社社长斯科特·罗克斯伯勒说：“我觉得有趣之处在于这些竞赛片都出自‘老欧洲’和美国，小部分出自亚洲，很少一部分出自斯堪的纳维亚半岛，而且东欧或俄国并不多。”
“所以我们可以看到许多老面孔和熟悉的国家——许多法国电影，这已是惯例，还有相当一部分是美国电影，此外还有我们之前熟悉的国家地区。”
戛纳电影节不愧为电影节的狂欢派对，在戛纳，众口不再难调。戛纳电影节将举行续集动画大片《驯龙高手2》全球首映，同时首映的还有1974年至今的经典恐怖片《德州电锯杀人狂》恢复版，让大家重温昔日经典。
戛纳电影节总是引发热议，今年也毫不例外。妮可·基德曼主演的《摩纳哥王妃》将聚焦美国演员格蕾丝·凯莉（Grace Kelly），摩洛哥王子雷尼尔三世（Rainier）的王妃，1982年在距离戛纳东部不远处因遭遇车祸罹难。
几个月来，出版社相继报道该片法国电影导演奥利维埃·达昂（Olivier Dahan）和他拥有美国分销权的制片人哈维·韦恩斯坦（Harvey Weinstein）已在商讨影片的最终剪辑。
这个月，包括艾伯特王子在内的摩纳哥王室成员、凯莉的孩子：卡洛琳和斯蒂芬妮，斥责这部电影是场“闹剧”，“从预告片看，证实了该影片全属虚构的本质。”
上个月戛纳电影节艺术总监蒂埃里·弗雷莫（Thierry Fremaux）被问及此事，他指出法国法律规定电影导演有电影的最终剪辑权。
弗雷莫说道：“无论在法国还是在戛纳，最终的版本是导演敲定的版本。”
无伤大雅的丑闻有益于商业发展。戛纳电影节确也制造了不少“丑闻”。自从1953年以来，戛纳允许拍摄此类照片——画面上好莱坞男主角柯克·道格拉 斯（Kirk Douglas）在沙滩上撩拨着18岁身着比基尼的法国影星碧姬·芭杜（Brigitte Bardot）的秀发。
戛纳电影节如磁铁般吸引了众多媒体。大卫·柯南伯格1996年凭借其黑色电影《欲望号快车》获得评委会大奖。他说道：“这正是一个像他一样的独立制片人所期盼的。”
在电话采访中，柯南伯格说他在戛纳可能还要至少500个访谈，这给他的新作以其他地方可能没办法达到的宣传效果。
“作为一名独立电影人，我们负担不起演员在全球各地宣传新片……所以这是宣传新片的绝妙场所。”
戛纳电影节令人惊叹的知名度是它区别于其他影展的主要因素。
英国编剧斯蒂芬·贝雷斯福德（Stephen Beresford）的影片《骄傲》将会在非主竞赛单元片区播出，他称戛纳电影节为“魔戒”。
“当你打电话给你的母亲并告诉她‘你的电影入围电影节啦’，当你说出‘戛纳’时，她知道你的意思。”