Cannes 2016: These Films Are Competing For the Top Prize

The world's most important and most glamorous film festival opens in Cannes on the French Riviera on May 11. These are the 21 films competing for its top prize, the Palme d'Or:

The Last Face

American actor-director Sean Penn is back in dangerous territory, his favourite habitat, with this fiery love story set in war-torn Liberia between the boss of an aid organisation played by Charlize Theron and a doctor (Javier Bardem).

Julieta

Spain's Pedro All About My Mother Almodovar continues his obsession with all things maternal in this full on adaptation of three short stories by the Canadian writer Alice Munro about a mother's search for her daughter who disappears for a decade.

It's Only the End of the World

French Canadian wonderkid Xavier Dolan conducts an all-star cast including Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux in this drama about a writer, who returns home to tell his family he is dying.

The Salesman

The Iranian master Asghar Farhadi, who won an Oscar for A Separation, returns to his theatrical roots in this story of two actors whose relationship turns sour during their performance of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

Toni Erdmann

An old man plays pranks on his adult daughter who he feels, lacks a sense of humour in German director Maren Ade's much-anticipated new film seven years after she won the Jury Grand Prix at Berlin for Everyone Else.

Loving

Jeff Nichols tells the story of a mixed race couple confronting racism in 1950s Virginia, based on the notorious case of Mildred and Richard Loving who were sentenced to a year in jail for marrying.

Paterson

US director Jim Jarmusch, whose new documentary about his friend Iggy Pop will also be screened at Cannes, is apparently back to his downbeat best with Adam Driver playing a bus driver poet in the New Jersey city of Paterson.

I, Daniel Blake

Until he hit comedy gold with Looking for Eric, no one could have accused the veteran British director Ken Loach of playing for laughs. But he has cast comedian Dave Johns in his latest gritty drama about welfare cuts hurting vulnerable families.

American Honey

A hard partying band of misfits selling magazines criss-cross the American Midwest in British director Andrea Arnold's road movie starring maverick Hollywood star Shia LaBeouf.

Personal Shopper

A ghost story set in the Paris fashion world with Twilight superstar Kristen Stewart teaming up again with France's Olivier Assayas after they scored a hit with their last English-language film, Sils Maria.

The Handmaiden

Sarah Waters' erotic crime novel Fingersmith has already been turned into a television series, but South Korean director Park Chan-wook best known for Old Boy transposes the story of a rich woman and a crook to colonial 1930s Korea.

Slack Bay

To say that French director Bruno Dumont divides critics is an understatement, but Cannes clearly loves him particularly after the success of his oddball television series Li'l Quinquin. He returns to the north French coast with this period drama about the mysterious disappearances of tourists starring Juliette Binoche and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, the sister of former French first lady, Carla Bruni.

Graduation

Originally called Family Photos, the latest film from the Romanian New Wave star Cristian Mungiu is apparently a semi-autobiographical tale of fatherhood. He won the Palme d'Or in 2007 with the harrowing abortion drama Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days.

The Unknown Girl

Uplifting crowd-pleasers have never been the Belgian Dardenne brothers' bag. And their latest about a young doctor who unwittingly turns a dying girl from her door does not look like a barrel of laughs.

However, they have won the top prize twice. So, will this be their hattrick?

Elle

It has taken him two decades to recover from Showgirls, but Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is back in the arthouse fold with French actress Isabelle Huppert playing a businesswoman attacked in her home.

Sieranevada

The second Romanian film in the running for the Palme d'Or is a family drama about neurologist coming to terms with his dead father from director Cristi Puiu, who made a big impact with his 2005 tragicomic The Death of Mr Lazarescu.

The Neon Demon

A vicious beauty cuts a bloody path through the Los Angeles fashion and celebrity scene, there is even talk of cannibalism in this supermodel horror flick from the hand of Denmark's Nicolas Winding Refn, best known for Drive.

From the Land of the Moon

In her second film in competition, Marion Cotillard stars as a woman caught in an unhappy marriage who falls in love again in French director Nicole Garcia's film set just after World War II.

Ma'Rosa

A small Manila shopkeeper who is caught selling a small amount of drugs is the heroine of the prolific Filipino director Brillante Mendoza's story of a family rallying against corrupt police.

Staying Vertical

French director Alain Guiraudie's new film about a film director adrift "in the heart of France" may scream navel gazing. But if his thriller Stranger by the Lake is anything to go by, expect some strange twists along the way.

Aquarius

The only Latin American entry by Brazilian film-maker Kleber Mendonca Filho is as yet something of a mystery. Set in an apartment block, it stars telenovela superstar Sonia Braga.

How People React When Celebs Talk About Depression and Mental Health

The interview is shown in black and white, as if to warn viewers of the serious business ahead. Bright, bubbly, Frozen actor Kristen Bell is sitting across from YouTube show host Sam Jones. The four-minute video starts in mid-conversation because the interview has been trimmed down into short, viral-ready clips.

"I'm extremely co-dependent," Bell says, "I shatter a little bit when I think people don't like me. That's part of why I lead with kindness and I compensate by being very bubbly all the time, because it really hurts my feelings when I know I'm not liked. And I know that's not very healthy, and I fight it all the time."

Bell reveals she started medication for her mental-health issues at a young age.

"I still take it today and I have no shame in that, because my mom had said to me, 'If you start to feel this way, talk to your doctor, talk to a psychologist, see how you want to help yourself'," she continues.

The interview was posted in early April and picked up recently by celebrity news sites, just as intended. The sites wrote about Bell's admission not as gossipy tabloid fodder but as praise for her honesty. Beneath the articles, readers' comments are overwhelmingly positive. "I completely relate to her," one Facebook commenter wrote.

Reading this might make you feel a little ". . . so what?" And that's why it's significant: Celebrities admitting they struggle with depression is now non-news.

Mental-health issues have always been shrouded in stigma, despite data showing they affect about 18 percent of American adults. Because people tend to mimic the actions and opinions of celebrities they admire, interviews like Bell's make a small dent in that stigma. Add her small dent to that of actor Chris Evans who, while promoting himself as the unshakable Captain America, discussed his anxiety in Rolling Stone magazine.

Add those to the comments by Sarah Silverman, Lady Gaga, Jon Hamm, Gwyneth Paltrow, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lena Dunham, Ryan Phillippe, J.K. Rowling, Jim Carrey and others, and you can feel the stigma shrinking. And you can see it in research.

In a survey conducted last year by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), 35 percent of adults older than 26 said they believed seeing a mental-health professional was a sign of strength. But among younger people, 60 percent agreed getting mental-health help was the strong thing to do. Those ages 18 to 25 were far more likely to have already reached out for help: 51 percent had received some kind of mental-health treatment, including therapy and medication, compared with 37 percent of older adults.

"Years ago when Rolling Stone did a story on Bruce Springsteen, and he shared that he was in treatment for many years from depression and thoughts of suicide, I had an influx of young men calling for psychotherapy," psychologist and author Deborah Serani recently told Forbes. "His disclosure helped. . . along the lines of 'Hey, Springsteen was depressed, and he reached out for treatment. I can too'."

That was the sentiment in reaction to Bell: Readers shared her interview alongside posts about their own panic attacks, struggles with medication and suicidal thoughts.

But occasionally, someone would point out an issue no amount of stigma-breaking can fix.

"Therapy helps, if you can get it. . ."

"How about 7 kids no money for food for heat for no lights no money for the kids lunch."

"I've tried medicine when I was young, but when I became of age I couldn't afford it anymore, I'm a poor folk, no insurance, so I just cope."

The cost of mental-health care is out of reach for many Americans. Last year, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that fewer than half of the 43.6 million Americans with mental illnesses are receiving treatment.

"We're seeing a shift in the stigma of mental health in emerging adults," said psychologist Anne Marie Albano, in a release regarding the ADAA findings. "But until we can improve access to mental-health care, it is unlikely that this generation will receive the support and care for a long-term change in mental well-being."

Perhaps the next wave of celebrity PSAs won't be about accepting the need for mental-health treatment, but advocating to make it easier to access.

At Cannes, a Choice Between Tight Security and Wrecking the Party

The Cannes film festival opens this week with the authorities in the French Riviera resort torn between the need for tight security and wrecking the party of a particularly starry year.

France is still officially under a state of emergency, 6 months after the Paris attacks in which 130 people died and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will visit the town himself to oversee measures. He promised "the highest level of security possible given the context of the terrorist threat."

With a host of Hollywood stars including Julia Roberts, Jodi Foster, Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Kirsten Dunst, Charlize Theron, George Clooney and Jeff Bridges due on the Croisette for the festival which starts on May 11, police are taking no risks.

They staged a simulated terror attack last month on the Palais des Festivals, where the films in the running for the Palme d'Or are shown, to test their new emergency response plan.

A car bomb attack on a school on the town was also a part of the scenario, with four top security experts including former Israeli general and anti-terrorism expert Nitzan Nuriel carrying out a full security audit.

Air and sea exclusions zones are also being declared, including a ban on drones, with a security cordon thrown around Cannes and all road and rail routes leading to the town.

Mayor David Lisnard said that the police were being ordered to "randomly search people in the street. "We are taking all measures so that the festival will be both safe and popular," he said.

More than 500 security personnel will guard the Palais des Festivals itself and prefect Adolphe Colrat will announce on Monday the number of police and paramilitary gendarmes that are being drafted in to patrol around that cordon.

He has already said that security will be "a degree above last year's levels" which were themselves ramped up after the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket attacks in Paris.

But many are worried that too much security will cramp Cannes, making the already hectic merry-go-round of screenings, meetings, interviews and parties all the more difficult to navigate.

'Sealed bubble'

The head of the Directors' Fortnight section of the festival, Edouard Waintrop sounded the alarm, telling reporters that he had been forced to cut screenings.

"We will have exceptional security measures in place this year. We've lost 17 hours of screenings which is equivalent to four films due to the new security protocols for gaining access to the cinemas. If the numbers have fallen this year, it's not out of choice but rather necessity," he added.

The festival's President Pierre Lescure insisted a balance had to be struck between security and freedom of movement.

Nevertheless, there would be no compromising on the "sealed bubble" around the Palais, he said, where the stars including Russell Crowe, Kristen Stewart and Ryan Gosling will walk the red carpet. With a quarter of a million visitors due in the Mediterranean resort during the festival, which runs until May 22, bottlenecks and queues are inevitable, however.

And no amount of security in the past has deterred the determined criminals and cat burglars of the Cote d'Azur.

The so-called Pink Panther gang were blamed for a 103-million euro ($130-million) gem theft in 2013 from the Carlton hotel where Alfred Hitchcock's classic film To Catch a Thief was set, and last year, robbers escaped with 17.5 million euros worth of jewellery after holding up the Cartier boutique on the Croisette.

The festival's opening film, however, comes from a seemingly more innocent era. Woody Allen's Cafe Society starring Kristen Stewart, is about a young couple who fall in love in 1930s Hollywood.

Eva Mendes, Ryan Gosling (Secretly) Welcome Second Daughter

Hollywood stars Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling have welcomed a second daughter, after once again keeping the pregnancy under wraps, TMZ reported.

Eva, 42, who started dating the Canadian actor in 2011, gave birth to Amada on April 29 in Santa Monica, near Los Angeles, the entertainment news site said.

Representatives for the American actress and 35-year-old Canadian star did not immediately confirm the report. They already have a daughter Esmeralda, born in 2014.

For both pregnancies, Eva, a Cuban-American born in Miami but raised in California, chose to rarely, if ever, appear in public, or appeared artfully wrapped in scarves and shawls.

Ryan met Eva on set while filming The Place Beyond the Pines, in which they played a couple with a baby. Ryan, a frequent candidate on the world's sexiest men list, is known for his roles in Drive and Crazy, Stupid, Love.

The actor - whose previous partners have included Sandra Bullock - was shortlisted for an Academy Award for 2006's Half Nelson. Ryan served up his hugely-anticipated directorial debut Lost River at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014, which had some critics screaming in pain and others singing his praise.

Last year he played an arrogant banker in The Big Short, and his police comedy The Nice Guys comes out this month.

Cannes 2016: Kristen Stewart, Marion Cotillard Rule With 2 Films Each

There will be no shortage of stars at the Cannes film festival. But this year, Twilight actress Kristen Stewart and French film actress Marion Cotillard are sweeping into the French resort town with films in the official selection.

Marion, 40, who has become a transatlantic celebrity with an Oscar and several Hollywood blockbusters, will appear in two films in the running for the top prize, the Palme d'Or.

In From the Land of the Moon, set just after World War II, Marion stars as a woman caught in an unhappy marriage who falls in love again. She also stars in It's Only the End of the World by French Canadian director Xavier Dolan, about a writer who returns home to tell his family he is dying.

Marion also won America's highest acting award in 2008, the Oscar and Kristen Stewart became the first American actress to win France's equivalent, the Cesar, in 2015, for her supporting role in Clouds of Sils Maria.

Kristen, 26, became a celebrity icon for an entire generation as Bella in the blockbuster vampire film Twilight.

This year, she appears in the out-of-competition opening film, Woody Allen's Cafe Society, about a young couple who fall in love in 1930s Hollywood.

She is also starring in Personal Shopper, a ghost story set in the Paris fashion world, which is running for the Palme d'Or. Kristen has collaborated with Sils Maria director, France's Olivier Assayas for the film.

Kristen, a Los Angeles native, was first discovered by a talent scout who spotted her in a school play at the age of eight.

Her breakout role was opposite Jodie Foster in the 2002 thriller Panic Room and at 17 her career rocketed into the stratosphere when she got the role of Bella Swan in Twilight.

Her relationship with Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson made her a tabloid favourite, particularly after she was pictured cheating on him with then-married director Rupert Sanders in 2012.

Up-and-comers

The festival will also feature young up-and-comers with Lily-Rose Depp and Elle Fanning.

With parents like Hollywood superstar Johnny Depp and French singer-actress Vanessa Paradis, Lily-Rose was never going to fly under the radar, and the 16-year-old has already turned to acting and become the teenage face of Chanel.

She makes her Cannes debut as legendary American dance prodigy Isadora Duncan in La Danseuse (The Dancer), which will be shown in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. Lily-Rose made her debut alongside her father in Kevin Smith's 2014 horror comedy Tusk.

She also stars in the upcoming French drama Planetarium alongside Natalie Portman.

Another Cannes teen star is American actress Ellie Fanning, 18, who features in Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's horror thriller The Neon Demon about cannibalistic models.

Elle Fanning is the younger sister of former child star Dakota Fanning. Her ascent into stardom began when she was just two-years-old, playing a younger version of her sister's character in the 2001 Michelle Pfeiffer/Sean Penn film I am Sam.

She has also appeared in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere and Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt.

Kirsten Dunst on jury duty

Another Cannes queen is American film star Kirsten Dunst, one of four women on the nine-member jury who will decide who wins the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the world's most prestigious film festival.

Kirsten, 34, won the Best Actress Award at Cannes five years ago for her part in Lars von Trier's Melancholia.

Like some of her fellow Cannes royalty, she was a child star before building a glittering career by mixing arthouse hits like Interview with the Vampire and The Virgin Suicides with the Spider Man films.

She will soon be seen in Woodshock, a first foray into filmmaking for Los Angeles fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy.

Cannes 2016: Jean-Pierre Leaud to Receive Palme d'Or

Jean-Pierre Leaud, the actor regarded by French New Wave great Francois Truffaut as his double, will receive an honorary Palme d'Or, the organisers of the Cannes film festival said on Tuesday on the eve of its opening.

Jean-Pierre Leaud, 71, made his debut at Cannes at just 14 in 1959 in Truffaut's semi-autobiographical masterpiece The 400 Blows, with the director later admitting that the actor was effectively playing him.

He later went on to star in other Truffaut classics such as Stolen Kisses and Bed and Board.

But the director's untimely death at 54 in 1984 was a disaster for the actor who was so closely associated with the master.

"Jean-Pierre Leaud is a part of Cannes legend," a spokesperson for the festival said in a statement. "His spontaneity was representative of the wind of freedom that the French New Wave brought to cinema."

The official Twitter handle of the Cannes Film Festival also posted:

Although Jean-Pierre Leaud also worked with the other great New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, his career never quite recovered.

The Palme d'Or is the highest prize at Cannes and will be awarded just before the festival closes on May 22.

Cannes 2016: Celebs Arrive Amid Tight Security

Cannes began rolling out the red carpet on Tuesday as stars including Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively swept into town for the world's top film festival whose dazzle is being tested by stiff security measures.

On foot, horseback and motorbikes, police patrolled the Croisette, a strip of beach lined with ultra-luxury stores and headed by the Palais des Festivals, the main venue for the cinema extravaganza which gets under way on Wednesday night.

A small army of workers carefully unrolled strips of the 60-metre red carpet that will host stars such as Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Kirsten Dunst, Charlize Theron and George Clooney over the 12-day festival.

The first of the big Hollywood films, Ms Foster's drama about a Wall Street tipster Money Monster starring Mr Clooney and Julia screens Thursday. Steven Spielberg will roll out his blockbuster version of Roald Dahl's The BFG at the weekend, although neither are competing for the top prize, Palme d'Or.

But already some of the main competition films are stirring controversy, with Juliette Binoche starring in horror film Slack Bay, which is about Victorian tourists eaten by the locals in northern France.

- Cannibalism -

Another, The Neon Demon, also features cannibalism, this time among supermodels in Los Angeles according to the film's Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, who is notorious for depicting extreme violence.

The population of Cannes is set to nearly triple to some 200,000 people as film producers, industry workers and actors roll in to soak up the glamour, sell films, network and party.

The festival has also created a security headache worthy of a movie script for French authorities six months after a series of attacks that killed 130 people in Paris.

"We must keep in mind as we prepare to open this festival, that we are faced with an enemy determined to strike us at any moment," Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on a visit to Cannes Monday.

As a result an "extraordinary mobilisation" of security forces has been put in place, with 400 private security agents guarding the Palais des Festivals alone, where the main films are shown.

Mr Cazeneuve said bomb experts would carry out daily sweeps of the venue.

Hundreds more police officers and specialist units will be on duty in the city, whose lure for the rich and famous makes it equally attractive to jewellery thieves - with several multi-million dollar heists in recent years.

Cannes has 500 CCTV cameras, making it the most closely monitored town in France, said Mayor David Lisnard.

- Balancing fun and security -

He dismissed concerns that the tight security will throw a wet blanket over the parties, glitter and glamour of the event.

"Do you think an attack brings merriment? We have succeeded in preserving the festival atmosphere. The public will be at the foot of the steps. All the parties will be authorised but security must be taken care of," he told AFP.

Last month elite police forces staged a simulated terror attack at the Palais des Festivals.

Air and sea exclusion zones have also been declared, as well as a ban on drones, and the Mayor has said random searches will be conducted in the streets of Cannes.

Hollywood stars Blake Lively and Kristen Stewart were photographed arriving in town.

The pair star in Woody Allen's Cafe Society which will open the event on Wednesday on what is expected to be a rain-drenched evening.

The movie, about a young couple who fall in love in 1930s Hollywood, is being screened out of competition.

Nearly 90 feature films will be shown in this year's official selection, 21 of which are in the running for the Palme d'Or.

But hundreds more films will be screened in the film market and in the Director's Fortnight and Critics' Week sections.

With the clock ticking, hectic last-minute preparations were still going on, with cranes lining the Croisette.

In Cannes port, crew members scrubbed the sleek yachts where many of the festival's parties take place.

Several billionaires have parked their superyachts along the Riviera for the festival: Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Octopus was in Nice and Spielberg's Seven Seas in Antibes, according to Forbes.com.