Opening with Roland Joffe's French period drama Vatel and closing with Canadian Denys Arcand's highly-touted Stardom, this year's Cannes Film Festival line-up promises a cinematic showcase of truly international dimensions including an astonishing seven Palme D'Or contenders from the Far East.

Indeed, with the US studios ever more reticent about seeing their films on the Croisette, this year's Cannes competition will primarily boil down to a contest between European and Asian/Middle Eastern auteurs, announced festival selectors on Tuesday afternoon.

While the star-heavy competition films of Joel Coen, James Gray, Neil LaBute and James Ivory are likely to command the lion's share of the press attention between May 10-21 - as will some of the decidedly mainstream films appearing out of competition or in the Un Certain Regard sidebar (see full list below) - Cannes 2000 is seen as belonging to a collection of young and established filmmakers spanning other continents.

Cannes chief selector Gilles Jacob noted that while Hollywood and its US independent satellites are now offering a far wider range of films than in recent years, these will not all be represented in the upcoming festival.

Rising production costs have made the studios ever more reluctant to present their films at Cannes, where they are at the mercy of festival critics, discriminating audiences and a high-profile competition where winning rarely equates to better box office returns. Far better to hold back until festivals such as Venice and Toronto that serve as autumn springboards.

Moreover, declared Jacob, the accelerating trend towards split rights deals in Hollywood - with one studio taking domestic rights, another taking international - has seen partners unable to agree on whether Cannes is the appropriate launch-pad.

Among the 23 directors challenging for the coveted Palme d'Or will be several names familiar to arthouse audiences worldwide, including Lars von Trier, Wong Kar-Wai, Nagisa Oshima, Pavel Lounguine, Liv Ullman, Edward Yang and Ken Loach.

But joining these festival favourites in Official Selection are numerous filmmakers who are still making their mark outside their countries of origin, directors such as Roy Andersson, Aoyama Shinji, Amos Gitai, Im Kwon Tae, Jiang Wen, Amos Kollek and Samira Makhmalbaf, the 20-year-old Iranian director who must rank one of the youngest ever to appear in competition.

The relative obscurity of these emergent talents contrasts with the popular appeal of some of this year's Jury. Presided over by French blockbuster chief Luc Besson, the competition will be assessed by the likes of Jonathan Demme, Jeremy Irons, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Indian Booker Prize-winning novelist Arundhati Roy and two European actresses, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon of Spain and Barbara Sukowa of Germany.

Reinforcing their star appeal will be a heavy contingent of stars who combine critical kudos with box office drawing power, including: George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Bjork, Juliette Binoche, Glenn Close, Penelope Cruz, Tim Robbins, Kim Basinger, Gary Sinise, John Turturro, Takeshi Kitano, Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve.

Also noticeably commercial in their orientation are the films appearing out of competition, including Brian De Palma's big-budget sci-fi spectacle Mission To Mars, pop-star Dave Stewart's gangster caper Honest and John Waters' campy B-movie homage Cecil B. Demented. Even Ang Lee's latest, set in period China, combines a David Lean epic scope with martial arts sequences worthy of a Hong Kong action specialist.

While Italian films have been a competition mainstay since the beginning of the festival, Jacob said that he and his team had screened more than 40 before rejecting them all. In all, the festival sifted through as many as 681 feature-length submissions before making the announcement.

Singling out some of the unifying themes of this year's line-up Jacob made a point of mentioning:

  • a return to melodrama, albeit with a modernist treatment, such as the films by Wong Kar-Wai; In The Mood For Love and Lars von Trier's Dancer In The Dark.
  • numerous period dramas, and not just from France. Joel Coen's chain gang comedy O Brother Where Art Thou competes with Jiang Wen's Foreign Devils (Guizi Lai Le), James Ivory's adaptation of Henry James' Golden Bowl, Nagisa Oshima's gay-themed samurai drama Gohatto, Im Kwon Taek's Chunhyang and Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
  • films noirs: O Brother, Neil LaBute's Nurse Betty and James Gray's The Yards.
  • And three films offer a foreigner's viewpoint: Ken Loach's first American-set film Bread And Roses, Von Trier's musical Dancer In The Dark set in a fish factory in small town America and Samira Makhmalbaf's Tableau Noir, about a Iranian teacher's experiences within a community of Iraqi and Kurdish refugees.
  • Jacob made comment on the growing length of films presented at Cannes and said that as many will be cut for later release he felt that the festival was being used as an experiment by some.

    OFFICIAL SELECTION

    Opening night film (out of competition):

    VATEL
    Dir: Roland Joffe
    (Int. sales: Gaumont)

    Closing night film (out of competition):

    STARDOM (aka 15 MOMENTS)
    Dir: Denys Arcand
    (Int. sales: Alliance Atlantis)

    COMPETITION:

    SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (SANGER FRAN ANDRA VANINGEN)
    Dir: Roy Andersson
    (Int. sales: The Co-Production Office)

    EUREKA
    Dir: Aoyama Shinji
    (Int. sales: Wild Bunch)

    LES DESTINEES SENTIMENTALES
    Dir: Olivier Assayas
    (Int. sales: Pathe International)

    O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU'
    Dir: Joel Coen
    (Int. sales: UPI)

    ESTHER KAHN
    Dir: Arnaud Desplechin
    (Int. sales: Le Studio Canal Plus)

    KIPPUR
    Dir: Amos Gitai
    (Int. sales: France Television Distribution)

    THE YARDS
    Dir: James GRAY
    (Int. sales: Miramax International)

    ESTORVO
    Dir: Ruy GUERRA

    CODE UNKNOWN
    Dir: Michael Haneke
    (Int. sales: MK2)

    CHUNHYANG
    Dir: Im Kwon Taek
    (Int. sales: Cineclick)

    THE GOLDEN BOWL
    Dir: James Ivory
    (Int. sales: TF1 International)

    GUIZI LAI LE (AKA FOREIGN DEVILS)
    Dir: Jiang Wen
    (Int. sales: Fortissimo Film Sales)

    FAST FOOD FAST WOMEN
    Dir: Amos Kollek
    (Int. sales: Celluloid Dreams)

    NURSE BETTY
    Dir: Neil Labute
    (Int. sales: Summit Entertainment)

    BREAD & ROSES
    Dir: Ken Loach
    (Int. sales: The Sales Co)

    LA NOCE
    Dir: Pavel Lounguine
    (Int. sales: Flach Pyramide)

    TAKHTE SIAH (aka BLACKBOARDS)
    Dir: Samira Makhmalbaf
    (Int. sales: Wild Bunch)

    HARRY, UN AMI QUI VOUSVEUT DU BIEN
    Dir: Dominik Moll
    (Int. sales: Mercure Distribution)

    GOHATTO
    Dir: Nagisa Oshima
    (Int. sales: Le Studio Canal Plus)

    FAITHLESS
    Dir: Liv Ullmann
    (Int. sales: Svensk Filmindustri)

    DANCER IN THE DARK
    Dir: Lars Von Trier
    (Int. Sales: Trust Film Sales)

    UNTITLED (aka IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE)
    Dir: Wong Kar-Wai
    (Int. sales: Fortissimo Film Sales)

    A ONE AND A TWO... (YI YI)
    Dir: Edward Yang
    (Int. sales: Capitol Films)

    SPECIAL SCREENINGS OUT OF COMPETITION

    REQUI