Cannes Festival To Launch With 3-D Animation

While Quentin Tarantino returns to Cannes as part of a group of familiar faces at the world's biggest film festival, the 62nd festival will open for the first time with an animated feature.
Up, a 3-D comedy directed by one of the creators of Toy Story, kicks off proceedings at the opening ceremony on May 13th.
However, big names such as Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar, Ken Loach and New Zealand's Jane Campion are not far behind this innovative launch.
Tarantino, who won the Palme d'Or for Pulp Fiction in 1994, presents his long-awaited World War Two caper Inglourious Basterds, starring Brad Pitt in the main competition line-up announced by Festival Director Thierry Fremaux.
Other previous Cannes winners include Ken Loach, who presents Looking for Eric, starring Eric Cantona about a postman looking for life lessons from the former France and Manchester United soccer star.
Meanwhile, Campion, the first woman to win the Palme d'Or with the 1993 film The Piano, is showing Bright Star about the 19th century English poet John Keats.
Also, Spanish director Almodovar, who has not won the top prize yet, brings an emotional drama called Broken Embraces, which stars his longtime favourite Penelope Cruz.
Fremaux acknowledged that the festival could not ignore the global economic crisis but he brushed aside talk of empty hotel rooms and cost-shy studios cutting back on attendance.
"We are all of us going to see a festival that will not be unaware that the world is in crisis," he told a news conference.
"We are going to try to make a festival which continues to be what it is," he said. "We haven't felt the slightest reluctance on anybody's part, anyone saying 'we have to watch out because of the crisis'. I would say that ... more than ever Cannes is the rendezvous for creators and the industry."
For more on Cannes, see 'Fish Tank' story, below.
(BMcC/KMcA)