Cannes, 5/13.

By David Hudson on 05/13/2009

Mike D'Angelo is still surprised, and more than pleasantly, too, to find himself covering the Cannes Film Festival this year. We are, too. Everybody wins. In a first dispatch to the AV Club, he looks ahead to what we might expect in each of the festival's sections.

At Vulture, Dennis Lim answers the five questions on your mind right now.

"Placement matters here," blogs J Hoberman for the Voice. "Hopes are high for Chinese controversialist Lou Ye's 'Spring Fever' (one of several Cannes entries about homosexual affairs in repressive societies) precisely because it's showing Thursday in a spot given in previous years to 'Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days' and 'Waltz With Bashir.' On the other hand, holding Tsai Ming-liang's French-set Fellini-sounding 'Visage' for the competition's last day, the market long packed up and the festival hemorrhaging press, doesn't send an optimistic signal. Cannes likes to be backloaded but not that backloaded."

"Gaspar Noé, whose feature 'Enter the Void' is screening in competition, is hatching a sex film," reports Geoffrey Macnab for Screen. "He says the as yet untitled film will be a 'a joyful porn movie - a joyful movie with explicit sex.'"

Nikki Finke hears that Sony Pictures Classics has picked up North American rights to Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" and Jan Kounen's "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky."

"Before the curtain rose on opening night at Cannes, IFC Films grabbed US distribution rights to Un Certain Regard screener 'Tales From the Golden Age,'" reports Sharon Swart reports in Variety. "Cristian Mungiu, whose 2007 Palme d'Or winner '4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days' was also distributed by IFC, wrote the pic."

"To paraphrase Stephen Colbert's frequently asked question about George W Bush: Will this be a great Cannes? Or the greatest Cannes?" Mary and Richard Corliss are in town for Time.

"All but five of this year's Cannes entrants have writing credits," notes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, "but being an auteur is about more than this: authoring a film means bending the entire process to your will and your vision." Related online viewing: Bradshaw and Xan Brooks's clip-laden preview.

Toronto Film Festival docs programmer Thom Powers has landed: "As the Cannes Film Festival makes headlines for the next 12 days, you probably won't hear much about documentaries. But you can rely on TIFF's Doc Blog to fill you in. Don't be mistaken. Doc makers are here, just rarely on the red carpet."

"Does Cannes Matter?" IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez puts the question to industry folk and film bloggers.

The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan is ready to roll.

Julian Sancton's there for Vanity Fair.

Anthony Kaufman points to "a number of [his] stories about the specialty biz landscape going into this year's most important international market."

Brooks Barnes blogs for the New York Times: "Sign of the Times at Cannes: Few Hollywood Faces and Empty Hotel Rooms."

Online viewing tip. Before the festival begins in earnest, Blake Ethridge captures sights and sounds - and posters.

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 2009.

Tags: Cannes 2009