AP Entertainment

Cannes, France, 25 May 2012

1. Wide of red carpet

2. Medium of Kristen Stewart and Tom Sturridge posing for photographers

3. Pan up Kristen Stewart and Tom Sturridge as they enter the Palais

4. Cutaway photographers

5. Zoom out Aishwarya Rai

6. Wide of model Doutzen Kroes

7. Wide of cast of "The Oath of Tobruk," with director Bernard-Henri Levy

8. Medium of Bonnie Wright

9. Wide of Cuba Gooding Jr, David Oyelowo, director Anthony Hemmingway, Melody Hobson and director George Lucas

10. Close up of Robert Pattinson

11. Wide of "Cosmopolis" cast - Paulo Branco, Don Dellilo, Juliette Binoche, Robert Pattinson, director David Cronenberg, Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti, Emily Hampshire and Martin Katz

12. Medium pan of "Cosmopolis" cast

13. Wide of cast, zoom in on Robert Pattinson entering the Palais

Stone Angels

14. Trailer clip: "Cosmopolis"

AMERICAN FILMS DOMINATE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL LINE UP

American movies are taking center stage at the Cannes Film Festival, with a fistful of U.S. films and stars including Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain in the 2012 line up announced Thursday (19 APRIL).

Among some of the most anticipated titles of the year is an adaptation of Jack Kerouac's Beat classic "On the Road."

It's one of 20 films battling for the May 16-27 festival's coveted top prize, the Palme d'Or.

Announcing the slate at Paris' Intercontinental Hotel, Cannes artistic director Thierry Fremaux said, "American cinema is back in force."

A total of 54 features representing 26 countries, from the U.S. to Syria, Iran and Brazil,were chosen from a record-breaking 1,779 films submitted to organizers of the French Riviera festival.

There's a possibility for a few late additions in the coming weeks.

Walter Salles' "On the Road," tells the story of the years Kerouac spent traveling the United States in the 1940s with his friend Neal Cassady and several other figures who would go on to fame in their own right.

Staring Sam Riley and "Twilight'"s Kristen Stewart, it also features a performance from Kirsten Dunst, who won Cannes' best actress award last year for her role in

"Melancholia."

Other U.S-slanted highlights include Andrew Dominik's "Killing Them Softly" starring Brad Pitt as a mob enforcer, and " The Paperboy," a drama with Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman by Lee Daniels, director of "Precious."

For Canadian director David Cronenberg, whose film "Cosmopolis" is among those in competition, the festival will be something of a family affair. His son Brandon's debut feature, "Antiviral" is in the festival's secondary competition, Un Certain Regard.

Screenings are expected to be packed to see if Cronenberg junior has the cinematic skills of his veteran father, who came to fame with visceral films such as "Videodrome" and "Naked Lunch."

"Cosmopolis," based on the Don DeLillo novel, features Stewart's "Twilight" co-star Robert Pattison.

For the young at heart, the 3-D animation "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" will also premiere at the festival, marking Cannes' continuing friendship with Hollywood's DreamWorks studios. The film features the vocal talents of Ben Stiller and Sacha Baron Cohen of "Borat" fame.

It is not the only 3-D offering included in the festival. For those with more nocturnal proclivities, Cannes will get out its garlic and wooden stakes for a midnight screening of Dario Argento's highly awaited "Dracula" in 3-D.

Several Cannes winners are back this year, including Austria's Michael Haneke, with "Amour," Britain's Ken Loach, with "The Angels' Share," and Romania's Cristian Mungiu, with "Beyond the Hills."

Joining them will be living legend Alain Resnais, who, at nearly 90, will present the aptly titled "Vous N'Avez Encore Rien Vu" or "You Haven't Seen Anything Yet." It's an adaptation of Jean Anouilh's "Eurydice" starring Cannes veteran Mathieu Amalric.

The festival will also pay a special tribute to the French filmmaker Claude Miller, who passed away this year.

"Claude Miller will close this 65th edition of the Cannes Festival with his movie," said Fremaux. " Without being to lyrical, Claude will be with us thanks to his movie. He would have wanted to be with us physically. As you know, he worked on this movie during the fall, he worked on the editing until the end of February. His disease only gave him much respite, but not much more. Right after the final cut, he was left with just a few days to live, he left us around 15 days ago."

Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti will chair the judging panel for the festival.

AP Entertainment

Paris, France 19 April 2012

1. Pan conference room at the Intercontinental hotel in central Paris

2. Mid Cannes Festival 2012 poster

3. Pan arrival general director of the Cannes Festival Thierry Fremaux and Festival president Gilles Jacob

4. SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry Fremaux, General director of the Cannes Festival

"Celebrities have always been an important part of the Cannes tradition. I actually love when people ask me: 'don't you think it is strange that you have tragic movies on screen, while celebrities walk up the red carpet?' And my answer is: it not bizarre, people would actually be surprised if we did not carry on this double tradition, with authors on the hand and their vision of our world's chaos, and on the other hand, stars, parties, pleasure and glamor."

5. Mid Thierry Fremaux with journalists

6. SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry Fremaux, General director of the Cannes Festival

"This year around the festival will be about glamor with the iconic figure of Marilyn Monroe, celebrities will be led so to speak by Nicole Kidman. She will feature in two movies. She has not been at the Cannes Festival for some time now. She and I have a special connection, because we know each other well, and we made our Cannes debut together. It was for "Moulin Rouge!" It was my first year in Cannes, a great memory. Yesterday again she told me how happy she is to be back in Cannes."

7. Mid conference with Thierry Fremaux and Gilles Jacob

8. SOUNDBITE (French), Thierry Fremaux, General director of the Cannes Festival

"Claude Miller will close this 65th edition of the Cannes Festival with his movie. Without being too lyrical, Claude will be with us thanks to his movie. He would have wanted to be with us physically. As you know, he worked on this movie during the fall, he worked on the editing until the end of February. His disease only gave him so much respite, but not much more. Right after the final cut, he was left with just a few days to live, he left us around 15 days ago."

9. Wide conference room

10. SOUNDBITE (French), Gilles Jacob, President of the Cannes Festival

"In this world dominated by shallowness and zapping, by mediocrity and a lack of debate, what matters, what makes us unique is our strong passion for cinema and for the great authors who produce it. Cannes has this great privilege to gather people around the discovery of a new movie. A movie which invents, reveals, overwhelms and dedicates."

11. Pan Gilles Jacob and Thierry Fremaux

12. Mid and close of Jacob and Fremaux in front of the festival's poster

SHOTLIST (including transcript):-

AP Entertainment

Cannes, France, 15th May 2012

1. Wide shot of The Palais

1. Mid shot of Festival de Cannes sign

2. Wide shot of the Pavilion

3. Wide shot of people walking

4. Close up of people walking

5. Close up the Carlton hotel

6. Pan down from "The Amazing Spider-Man" movie poster to "The Dictator" movie poster outside the Carlton hotel

7. Close up of Sacha Baron Cohen on "The Dictator" movie poster

8. Wide of the beach

9. Medium shot of man doing juggling tricks on the beach

10. Medium of Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Festival Director, talking to reporter

11. SOUNDBITE (English) Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Festival Director:

"To celebrate an anniversary is also an opportunity to make the atmosphere much more, much more happy, much more like in a family. We're all happy when there is something to celebrate and, and I think that we celebrate every year what cinema is, but saying that it's the 65th anniversary it's maybe a way not to celebrate Cannes but to celebrate what Cannes has done for, or what the film festivals in the world (have) done for. We are here to celebrate cinema, to support the filmmaker, the cinema d'auteur, to support the professionals who are working here. We are not only here in the sun with beautiful landscape we are all here to work and in a word, it's, it's to say that Cannes is here to prove that the cinema is alive."

12. Medium of Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Festival Director, talking to reporter

13. SOUNDBITE (English) Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Festival Director:

"Yeah, a lot of films made in America by people who come from America, three but, David Cronenberg is Canadian, Walter Salles is Brazilian, John Hillcoat and Andrew Dominik are Australian, so America is becoming again maybe a land of open dreams for the filmmakers in the world, but what is very interesting is that the recent American cinema was divided in two blocks. One was the small independent cinema celebrated in a festival like the Sundance Film Festival for example which emerged in the 80s with the video and so on, and on the other side the big blockbuster made by the studio in Hollywood - the summer movies and we have maybe now some kind of comeback of the filmmakers who are making films for the public for people from thirty to sixty years old. Of course we still have Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers and Terrence Malick and so on but there is quite a young generation, like Jeff Nichols, who is in competition this year with "Mud." I think he's 35 or 36 and maybe they are the sons of Jerry Schatzberg or Bob Rafelson or Martin Scorsese all the filmmakers who were famous in the seventies."

14. Medium of Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Festival Director, talking to reporter

THE AMERICANS ARE COMING TO CANNES

Despite the mood in Europe, don't expect any austerity at the Cannes Film Festival, the annual Cote d'Azur extravaganza where glamor is wrapped in world cinema fervor and gauzy Mediterranean sunshine.

Except for the Oscars, it's the flashiest red carpet in the world, a ruby staircase flanked by tuxedoed photographers - and a world away from financial turmoil.

Yet Cannes, the 65th edition of which starts Wednesday (16th May 2012), fetes its directors as much as it does its stars.

This year, there are plenty of both: esteemed international filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami and Michael Haneke to big-name talent like Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman.

Among the 22 films in competition, there's a particularly large American contingent which was selected, in-part, by Cannes' artistic director Thierry Fremaux.

"America is becoming again maybe a land of open dreams for filmmakers," says Fremaux.

"Of course we still have Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers and Terrence Malick and so on, but there is quite a young generation, like Jeff Nichols, who is in competition this year with 'Mud.' I think he's 35 or 36 and maybe they are the sons of Jerry Schatzberg or Bob Rafelson or Martin Scorsese all the filmmakers who were famous in the seventies."

The opening night film is Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom" - the story about adolescent love on the run that brings a few new names (Bruce Willis, Ed Norton) into Anderson's carefully orchestrated world.

Later, there's David Cronenberg's Don DeLillo adaptation, "Cosmopolis," starring Robert Pattinson.

Brazilian director, Walter Salles' ("The Motorcycle Diaries") anticipated adaptation of Jack Kerouac's beloved "On the Road" is produced by Francis Ford Coppola and stars Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund, but has attracted more attention for its supporting roles, including Pattinson's "Twilight" co-star Kristen Stewart as Dean Moriarty's girlfriend.

The unusually large U.S. group is rounded out by Jeff Nichols' "Mud," with Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon; and Lee Daniels' "Precious" follow up, "The Paperboy," a death row drama starring McConaughey, Zac Efron and Kidman.

There's also Australian director, John Hillcoat's "Lawless," a prohibition-era bootlegging tale starring Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy, and New Zealander Andrew Dominick's "Killing Them Softly," a crime film starring Pitt as a mob enforcer.

The 65th addition of the Cannes Film Festival runs through until Sunday 27th May when the winner of the Palme d'Or - the festival's top prize -will be announced.

"To celebrate an anniversary is also an opportunity to make the atmosphere much more, much more happy, much more like in a family. We're all happy when there is something to celebrate and, and I think that we celebrate every year what cinema is, but saying that it's the 65th anniversary it's maybe a way not to celebrate Cannes but to celebrate what Cannes has done for, or what the film festivals in the world (have) done for. We are here to celebrate cinema, to support the filmmaker, the cinema d'auteur, to support the professionals who are working here. We are not only here in the sun with beautiful landscape we are all here to work and in a word, it's, it's to say that Cannes is here to prove that the cinema is alive," says Fremaux.