Cannes unveils Competition lineup

April 23, 2008 Organizers of this year's Festival de Cannes might have pulled a magic rabbit out of their berets Wednesday with an Official Competition lineup jammed with hotly anticipated films including several that prevailing wisdom dictated wouldn't be ready in time to unspool at the Palais. The idea of such North American directors as Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Atom Egoyan and Woody Allen rubbing shoulders with Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Brazil's Walter Salles, Germany's Wim Wenders and Hong Kong's Wong Kar Wai certainly raises the bar of anticipation to that of the 2002 lineup, which produced "The Pianist," "About Schmidt" and "City of God." Spielberg will have his "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" at Cannes, but the film won't open the festival as previously announced, Fremaux said.

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