Festival de Cannes Announcement

With the usual fanfare, Festival de Cannes announced the lineup for the 60th edition of the granddaddy of them all. The festival runs May 16-27 in Cannes, France.
At least eight films from our seven Sister City countries made it into the festival. There may be more, but Cannes doesn’t identify all “home” countries of the films or directors.
I’m lifting info here from the best web site I could find on Cannes: “Cannes – A Festival Virgin’s Guide”.
Also, Cannes has a new web site of its own with a lot of info.
Here for starters are films from our countries that made the cut. First I’ll give a category description, a la Virgin’s Guide, and underneath I’ll list our films. But go to there site, because it’s cool.

Compétition: The competition is the festival's main event and this is where you'll find all the glamour and glory. Films screening in this section are referred to as being "in competition" and vie for an assortment of awards. The Holy Grail is of course the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for best picture, one of the most prestigious film awards on the planet. Winning the Palme d'Or generally gives the film a massive lift: for art-house films, it can bring in millions of extra dollars at the international box-office, for foreign films it means worldwide distribution. Historically, the competition has only been open to narrative films, although occasionally a documentary is slipped in (such as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" which won the top prize in 2004). The competition welcomes both features and shorts, and there are different awards in each category.
Germany - Fatih AKIN, Auf de Anderen Seite 2h02
Japan - Naomi KAWASE , Mogari No Mori (The Mourning Forest) 1h37
Mexico - Carlos REYGADAS, Stellet Licht 2h22
Hungary - Béla TARR, The Man From London 2h12
SHORT FILMS IN COMPETITION
Mexico - Elisa MILLER, Ver Llover

Un Certain Regard: Created in 1978 to absorb several ambiguous sidebars, Un Certain Regard is now the main showcase section of the festival and is intended to be a "survey of current world cinema". Historically there were no awards attached to Un Certain Regard, but in recent years the festival has created the Prix Un Certain Regard to help the best film in the sidebar achieve distribution in France. Occasionally other awards are made in this section as well.
Italy - Valeria BRUNI-TEDESCHI, Le Reve de la Nuit d'Avant, 1h47
Italy - Daniele LUCHETTI, Mio Fratello e Fiblio Unico 1h48
Germany - Robert THALHEIM, Am Ende Kommen Touristen 1h22

Cinéfondation: Added in 1998, Cinéfondation is the festival's competition for short and medium-length films made at film schools around the world. The Cinéfondation sidebar has its own jury and there are three awards (which include a cash prize) for the best films in this section.
Germany - Nicolas WACKERBARTH, Halbe Stunden

The most prestigious award given out at Cannes is the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for the best film. The jury of the festival, made of a small international selection of movie professionals, grants other awards, including the Grand Prix (Grand Prize) — the second most prestigious award.