PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. director Quentin Tarantino takes his movie “Death Proof” to the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it will be up against compatriots the Coen Brothers and Gus Van Sant in the main competition lineup.
Organizers unveiling the selection for the 60th edition of the world’s biggest film festival on Thursday also announced that Michael Moore, controversial winner of the Palme d’Or prize in 2004, will be back on the Croisette.
His documentary “Sicko,” about the U.S. health care system, is not in the main competition but Moore’s presence in Cannes, where he won the top prize in 2004 for his anti-Bush polemic “Fahrenheit 9/11,” will generate valuable publicity.
“Death Proof” is a special adaptation of Tarantino’s section of a thriller double-bill already in theatres under the name of “Grindhouse.” The other part was directed by Robert Rodriguez.
The opening film in Cannes will be Chinese film maker Wong Kar Wai’s “My Blueberry Nights,” starring Jude Law, Ed Harris, Natalie Portman and jazz singer Norah Jones in a story about a woman traveling across America.
In the main competition he will be up against U.S. directors including the Coen Brothers (“No Country for Old Men”), David Fincher (“Zodiac”) and Van Sant (“Paranoid Park”) as well as Sarajevo-born Emir Kusturica (“Promise Me This”).
Out of competition but launching in Cannes will be “Ocean’s 13,” the third in the heist series starring George Clooney, and “A Mighty Heart,” a movie based on the 2002 kidnap and murder of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan starring Angelina Jolie.
On the jury, which is headed this year by British director Stephen Frears, will be Turkish Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk.
[Above is a Reuter’s Photo of Quentin Tarantino at the “Grindhouse” Los Angeles premiere]
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