It’s in the Cannes: 16 movies line up for coveted prizes

Full details of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival – to be held from May 12 to 23 – have been announced, with 16 movies competing for top prizes.

It’s the 63rd festival – it began in 1946 – and among the films this year are Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Mike Leigh’s Another Year, Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Doug Liman’s political drama Fair Game. Leigh’s Secrets & Lies scooped the top Cannes prize in 1996, which, last year, was won by Michael Haneke for The White Ribbon. Stone’s film is a sequel to his 1987 movie, Wall Street, which starred Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen. Douglas reprises his role of Gordon Gekko for the new movie, which also stars Shia LeBeouf (Transformers) and Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go). Mulligan – who is currently dating LeBeouf – is a British actor fast rising in Hollywood. In 2007, she starred opposite David Tennant in an award-winning episode of Doctor Who titled Blink, by Steven Moffat, before going on to win a BAFTA for her part in the 2009 film An Education. Other films in the running for the prestigious Palm d’Or prize are Mathieu Amalric’s Tournée and Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu’s Biutiful. The Croisette will also host world premieres of Stephen Frears’s graphic-novel adaptation of Tamara Drewe, starring Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace), and Hideo Nakata’s Chatroom, starring Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass). In 2009, Johnson starred, to great acclaim, as a young John Lennon in Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy. The two became engaged in October 2009 and Taylor-Wood is expecting their first child. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe (Gladiator) will screen out of competition as the opening-night film, and the full line-up can be found by visiting the Cannes website. Meanwhile, a movie by Vikramaditya Motwane, Udaan, has the honour of being the only Indian film to be shown at this year’s event. The Bollywood movie – which is set in Jamshedpur in Bihar, and features the well-kown Indian actors Ronit Roy (Pankh) and Ram Kapoor (Zee TV) – is produced by Anurag Kashyap (Gulaal) and Sanjay Singh (Khamoshh... Khauff Ki Raat). It will be screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. Motwane, who has previously worked as an assistant to the director Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Saawariya), co-wrote 2009’s Dev D, starring Abhay Deol.