Jean-Luc Godard, Ryan Gosling, Eric Cantona all make 2014 Cannes Film Festival
Films by Jean-Luc Godard, Ken Loach, the Dardennes brothers and David Cronenberg are among those chosen to compete for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes film festival, it was announced on Thursday.
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Only 18 films are picked from more than 1,700 submitted to the organisers of the world's biggest film festival, which opens on 14 May and runs until 25 May.
At a ceremony in Paris, Cannes Artistic Director Thierry Frémaux read out the shortlist and the name of veteran 84-year-old Franco-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard was especially well received by the audience. His short 3D film is entitled Adieu au Langage.
French films Saint Laurent by Bertrand Bonello, The Search directed by Michel Hasanavicius and Sils Maria by Olivier Assayas are also in competition while French actress Marion Cotillard stars in a film by the Dardennes brothers, Two days, One Night.
Former footballer Eric Cantona appears in a Danish western, one of the surprise choices, and Hollywood star Ryan Gosling’s first film as a director, Lost River, is also on the list in the section Un Certain regard.
Held almost every year since 1946, the festival is famed as much for launching the careers of filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino as for its glitzy red carpet photo calls, luxury yachts, star-studded parties and diamond heists.
And behind the scenes film industry executives and producers turn the festival into a huge marketplace as they cut deals to secure a share in the next big movie event.
The film which opens the festival is not in competition for the Palme but has already been the subject of some controversy.
Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman as the former Hollywood star Grace Kelly, has annoyed her children, Prince Albert and Princesses Caroline and Stephanie of Monaco, who plan to boycott a work of they dismiss as "pure fiction".
Based around the late Prince Rainier, played by British actor Tim Roth, and Kelly, who died in a car crash in 1982, it tracks events at a time when France was threatening to annex the tiny principality on its southern coast.
A French film about an ageing night club hostess, will open the Un Certain Regard new talent section. Party Girl is a first feature film directed by three newcomers,
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