Eighteen documentaries and two fiction films will be featured, including 15 New York premieres. Most of the screenings will be followed by Q&A sessions with filmmakers, and some by panel discussions with experts and film subjects.

“One of the most rewarding aspects of programming this festival is that it always reveals thought-provoking and often surprising themes distilled from the past year’s human rights films,” said festival director John Biaggi. “The most striking theme this year is the tension between traditional values and human rights — from issues women face, including sexual harassment, gender equality and child marriage, to dangers faced by the LGBT community, to injustices faced by the disabled. At the core of each of these films — and of all the films in this year’s festival — is the inspiring strength of individuals standing up for themselves, their rights and their communities.”

Traditional values and human rights is one of four themes for this year’s festival — incorporating women’s rights, disability rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The other themes are crises and migration; a focus on Asia; and human rights in the United States.

The festival will launch on June 13 with a fundraising Benefit Night for Human Rights Watch featuring the HBO documentary Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington. The film is Sebastian Junger’s moving tribute to his lost friend and Restrepo co-director, the photojournalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington, who was killed while covering the Libyan civil war in 2011. The main program will kick off on June 14 with the Opening Night presentation of Oscar-winning filmmaker Freida Mock’s ANITA, in which Anita Hill looks back at the powerful testimony she gave against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and its impact on the broader discussion of gender inequality in America. The Closing Night screening on June 23 will be Jeremy Teicher’s award-winning drama Tall As the Baobab Tree, the touching story of a teenage girl who tries to rescue her younger sister from an arranged marriage in rural Senegal.

Traditional Values and Human Rights: Women’s Rights
Traditional values are often cited as an excuse to undermine human rights. In addition to Tall As the Baobab Tree, five documentaries in this year’s festival consider the impact on women. Veteran documentarian Kim Longinotto’s Salma is the remarkable story of a South Indian Muslim woman who endured a 25-year confinement and forced marriage by her own family before achieving national renown as the most famous female poet in the Tamil language. Jehane Noujaim and Mona Eldaief’s Rafea: Solar Mama profiles an illiterate Bedouin woman from Jordan who gets the chance to be educated in solar engineering but has to overcome her husband’s resistance. In Karima Zoubir’s intimately observed Camera/Woman, a Moroccan divorcée supports her family by documenting wedding parties while navigating her own series of heartaches. It will be shown with Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami’s Going Up the Stairs, a charming portrait of a traditional Iranian grandmother who discovers her love of painting late in life and is invited to exhibit her work in Paris. Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s candid HBO documentary Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer centers on the women of the radical-feminist punk group, two of whom are currently serving time in a Russian prison for their acts of defiance against the government.

Traditional Values and Human Rights: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights
Three films in the program remind viewers that, despite recent strides toward equality, LGBT communities around the world still struggle for acceptance. Shaun Kadlec and Deb Tullmann’s Born This Way is an intimate look at the lives of four young gay men and lesbians in Cameroon, where there are more arrests for homosexuality than in any other country in the world. Yoruba Richen’s The New Black uncovers the complicated and often combative intersection of the African-American and LGBT civil rights movements, with a particular focus on homophobia in the black church. In Srdjan Dragojevic’s drama The Parade, a fight by activists to stage a Gay Pride parade in Belgrade leads to an unlikely alliance in a black-humored look at contemporary Serbia.

Traditional Values and Human Rights: Disability Rights
Harry Freeland’s In the Shadow of the Sun is an unforgettable study in courage, telling the story of two albino men who attempt to follow their dreams in the face of prejudice and fear in Tanzania.

Crises and Migration
Three documentaries highlight the issues of humanitarian aid, conflict and migration. In the Festival Centerpiece, Fatal Assistance, the acclaimed director Raoul Peck, Haiti’s former culture minister, takes us on a two-year journey following the 2010 earthquake and looks at the damage done by international aid agencies whose well-meaning but ignorant assumptions turned a nightmare into an unsolvable tragedy. Danish journalist Nagieb Khaja’s My Afghanistan – Life in the Forbidden Zone shows ordinary Afghans in war-torn Helmand who were provided with hi-res camera phones to record their daily lives, giving a voice to those frequently ignored by the Western media. Marco Williams’ The Undocumented is an unvarnished account of the thousands of Mexican migrants who have died in recent years while trying to cross Arizona’s unforgiving Sonora Desert in search of a better life in the United States.

Focus on Asia
The festival will screen two important documentaries from Asia. In Joshua Oppenheimer’s chilling and inventive The Act of Killing, the unrepentant former members of Indonesian death squads are challenged to reenact some of their many murders in the style of the American movies they love. Marc Wiese’s Camp 14 – Total Control Zone tells the powerful story of Shin Dong-Huyk, who spent the first two decades of his life behind the barbed wire of a North Korean labor camp before his dramatic escape led him into an outside world he had never known. Wiese is the recipient of the festival’s annual Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking for his film.

Human Rights in the United States
Four American documentaries — including festival opener ANITA — highlight human rights issues in our own back yard. 99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film goes behind the scenes of the 2011 movement, digging into big-picture issues as organizers, participants and critics reveal what happened and why. Al Reinert’s An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story tells the story of a Texas man who was wrongfully convicted of his wife’s murder and was exonerated by new DNA evidence after nearly 25 years behind bars. Lisa Biagiotti’s deepsouth is an evocative exploration of the rise in HIV in the rural American south, a region where poverty, a broken health system and a culture of denial force those affected to create their own solutions to survive.

In conjunction with this year’s film program, the festival will present the photo exhibit Dowry: Child and Forced Marriage in South Sudan. The exhibit is Getty photographer Brent Stirton’s visual investigation into the devastating impact the tradition of child marriage has on girls in this East African nation. It will be featured in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater for the duration of the festival.

Complete Program and Schedule Information:
ff.hrw.org

The Benefit Screening and Opening Night film will be shown at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th St. (between Amsterdam and Broadway). All other films will be screened uptown at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W. 65th St. (between Amsterdam and Broadway), and downtown at the IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. (at West 3rd St.)

TICKET INFORMATION: Tickets are available online at filmlinc.com for the screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and ifccenter.com for the IFC Center, as well as directly from each of the organization’s box offices. Film Society of Lincoln Center: $13.00 General Public, $9.00 Seniors & Students, $8.00 FSLC Members. IFC Center: $13.50 General Public, $9.50 Seniors & Children, $8.50 IFC Center Members. A discount package is also available for screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. For more information, call the Film Society at 212-875-5600 or IFC Center at 212-924-7771 or visit ff.hrw.org. Ticket On Sale Dates: Tuesday, May 21 – Pre-sale to Members, Thursday, May 30 – General Public. For discounted tickets and festival updates, sign up for the mailing list at www.hrw.org/filmconnect. Follow the festival on Twitter @hrwfilmfestival.

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. We work tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and fight to bring greater justice and security to people around the world. Through the Human Rights Watch Film Festival we bear witness to human rights violations and create a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference. The film festival brings to life human rights abuses through storytelling in a way that challenges each individual to empathize and demand justice for all people. To learn more about our work or to make a donation, visit www.hrw.org

The 2013 Filmmaker on the Edge Award (sponsored by the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation) will be awarded to writer/director Harmony Korine (SPRINGBREAKERS, GUMMO, MISTER LONELY, KIDS) in conversation with John Waters at Provincetown’s Town Hall on Saturday, June 22nd.

The Festival will close on June 23rd with a block party and the presentation of the HBO Audience Awards (this event is being produced by Rafanelli Events of Boston, New York, DC and Palm Beach).

Tickets go on sale on May 25th. Festival passes are on sale now.

Opening Night film:
LOVELACE
Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
(East Coast Premiere)

Closing Night film:
EMANUEL AND THE TRUTH ABOUT FISHES
Directed by Francesca Gregorini
(East Coast Premiere)

Friday Night Spotlight:
I AM DIVINE
Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz

Saturday Night Spotlight:
I’M SO EXCITED!
Directed by Pedro Almodovar
(East Coast Premiere)

The complete film line-up will be available on the Festival website on Friday, May 10th at: www.ptownfilmfest.org

Presenting Sponsors of the 2013 Festival are HBO, Crown & Anchor, MALLRD Foundation, Bubala’s, Local 186, Xfinity, Ultra.

Official Card: American Express.

PIFF is also supported by grants from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, The National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Provincetown Tourism Fund and the GALE Fund of the Cape Cod Foundation.

About PFS & PIFF:
The Provincetown Film Society, Inc. (PFS) is the year-round organization and home of the 15-year-old Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) and the Waters Edge Cinema. PFS is dedicated to showcasing new achievements in independent film and honoring the work of acclaimed and emerging directors, producers and actors. This is achieved through its 5-day Festival in June as well as its year-round theater operation , the Waters Edge Cinema. PFS is equally devoted to expanding the audience for independent film and to serving our Provincetown and Outer Cape community by filling the void for annual film programming and reflecting the community’s rich diversity in our selected films and honorees. An integral part of PFS’s mission is to contribute to the economic and creative vitality of America’s oldest art colony.

By inviting directors and their producers to meet hundreds of potential partners during the Festival de Cannes, L’Atelier offers its participants access to international co-production, thereby maximizing their chances of completing their projects. So far, out of 126 projects presented over the last eight years, 83 have been completed and 29 are currently in pre-production.

Rey
Niles Attalah, Chile

Ciao Ciao
Song Chuan, China

Out/In the Streets
Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk; Egypt

Lamb
Yared Zeleke; Ethiopia

Je ne suis pas un salaud
Emmanuel Finkiel; France

Stage Fright
Yorgos Zois; Greece

Chenu
Manjeet Singh; India

Holy Air
Shady Srou; Israel

The House on Fin Street
Amir Manor; Israel

Sworn Virgin
Laura Bispuri;Italia

Me, Myself and Murdoch
Yahya Alabdallah; Jordan / Palestine

Days of Cannibalism
Teboho Joscha Edkins
South Africa

Memories of the Wind
Özcan Alper
Turkey

Road Kill
Yuichi Hibi
U.S.A.

The Heirs
Jorge Hernández Aldana
Mexico

Le Livre des Projets sera disponible début avril sur le site www.cinefondation.com

The Livre des Projets will be available online at the beginning of April on www.cinefondation.com.

CONTACT: Nicolas Rouilleault (latelier@festival-cannes.fr)

As cinema’s link to its own history was about to be turned upside down by the arrival of digital and because films from the past are an integral part of the Festival de Cannes, 2004 saw the creation of Cannes Classics, a programme presenting old films and masterpieces from cinematographic history that have been carefully restored. A natural, vital part of the Official Selection – and an idea which has made its way into other international festivals – Cannes Classics is also a way to pay tribute to the essential work being down by copyright holders, film libraries, production companies and national archives throughout the world.

Thus, Cannes Classics lends the prestige of the Festival de Cannes to great works from the past, accompanying their release in theatres or on DVD.

The films selected for the 2013 edition will be screened in the company of those who restored the films as well as those directors that are still with us today.

This year’s programme of Cannes Classics is made up of twenty feature-length films and three documentaries. The films will be screened according to the wishes of copyright holders in 35mm, DCP 2K or DCP 4K.

As announced previously, Kim Novak will come to present the restored print of Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock. Furthermore, the Cannes Classics 2013 program will be placed under the sign of a movie having marked the history of the Festival de Cannes La Grande Bouffe by Marco Ferreri, who aroused during her presentation in 1973 one of the biggest scandals of Croisette.

RESTORED PRINTS

BOROM SARRET (1963, 20’) by Ousmane Sembène
CHARULATA (CHARLUTA: THE LONELY WIFE) (1964, 1:57) by Satyajit Ray
CLEOPATRA (1963, 4:03) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
FEDORA (1978, 1:50) by Billy Wilder
GOHA (1957, 1:18) by Jacques Baratier
HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959, 1:32) by Alain Resnais
IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI (THE DESERT OF TARTARS) (1976, 2:20) by Valerio Zurlini
LA GRANDE ABBUFFATA (LA GRANDE BOUFFE) (1973, 2h05) de Marco Ferreri
LA REINE MARGOT (1994, 2:39) by Patrice Chéreau
LE JOLI MAI (1963, new 2013 cut: 2:25) by Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme
LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG (THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG) (1964, 1:31) by Jacques Demy
LUCKY LUCIANO (1973, 1:55) by Francesco Rosi
MAYNILA: SA MGA KUKO NG LIWANAG (THE NAIL OF BRIGHTNESS) (1975, 2:04) by Lino Brocka
PLEIN SOLEIL (BLAZING SUN) (1960, 1:55) by René Clément
SANMA NO AJI (AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON) (1962, colour, 2:13) by Yasujirō Ozu
THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (1974, 2:00) by Ted Kotcheff
THE LAST DETAIL (1973, 1:44) by Hal Ashby
THE LAST EMPEROR 3D (1987, 2h43) by Bernardo Bertolucci
VISIONS OF EIGHT (1973, 1:49) by Youri Ozerov, Milos Forman, Mai Zetterling, Claude Lelouch, Arthur Penn, Michael Pfleghar, John Schlesinger, Kon Ichikawa.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of Cocteau’s death, LA BELLE ET LA BETE by Jean Cocteau (1946, 1:34) as well as OPIUM (2013, 1:15), a musical comedy directed by par Arielle Dombasle, will be shown during a very special evening.

Euzhan Palcy’s film, SIMEON (1992, 1:55) will be screened in honour of the 100th birthday of Aimé Césaire.

Two documentaries about the world of cinema:

CON LA PATA QUEBRADA (2013, 1:23) by Diego Galán (Spain)
A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM (2013, 1:40) by Mark Cousins (Great Britain)

Finally, in tribute to Joanne Woodward (presence to be confirmed), who can be seen with husband Paul Newman on the poster of the 66th edition, the Festival will screen the final film she produced: SHEPARD & DARK by Treva Wurmfeld (2013, 1:29).

In addition, Cannes Classics will also be part of Cinéma de la plage where the following restored films will be shown:

JOUR DE FETE (France, 1949, 1:27) by Jacques Tati
THE GENERAL (1926, 1:18) by Buster Keaton
THE BIRDS (1963, 2:09) by Alfred Hitchcock
LE GRAND BLEU (THE BIG BLUE) (1988, 2:16) by Luc Besson
THE LADIES’ MAN (1961, 1:35) by Jerry Lewis
L’HOMME DE RIO (THE MAN FROM RIO) (France, 1964, 1:52) by Philippe de Broca
SAFETY LAST (1923, 1:13) by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor

Jim Jarmusch’s vampire romance “Only Lovers Left Alive,” with Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston, took the last competition slot. “Le Dernier des injustes,” a Holocaust documentary from France’s Claude Lanzmann (“Shoah”) will play out of competition.

“Tore Tanzt,” the feature debut of Germany’s Katrin Gebbe, made Un Certain Regard, as did Kurdistan-born Hiner Saleem’s border drama “My Sweet Pepperland” and Argentine director Lucia Puenzo’s “Wakolda,” about a former Nazi hiding in a Patagonia village.

Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” is produced by Jeremy Thomas’ Recorded Picture Co., and “Wakolda” is a Spanish movie co-produced by Jose Maria and Miguel Morales’ Wanda Vision. In addition, U.K. co-production “Monsoon Shootout” will receive a Midnight Screening.

“Only Lovers Left Alive” is directed by an American, “Wakolda” by an Argentinean, produced by Luis Puenzo at Buenos Aires’ Historias Cinematograficas.

Neither U.K. nor Spain has ever had the large established audiences for art-house movies of France, nor France’s zeal to co-produce or co-finance talent from all over the world. “My Sweet Pepperland” is backed by France’s Memento Films Distribution.

The members are: Vidya Balan (Indian actress); Naomi Kawase (Japanese director); Nicole Kidman (Australian actress/producer); Lynne Ramsay (British scriptwriter/director/producer); Daniel Auteuil (French actor/director); Ang Lee (U.S.-based Taiwanese director/producer/scriptwriter); Cristian Mungiu (Romanian scriptwriter/director/producer), and Christopher Waltz (Austrian Actor)

In between performances from Wynton Marsalis and Liza Minnelli, there were speeches by Amy Irving, Blythe Danner, George Segal, Pierce Brosnan and Kris Kristofferson, all of whom reminisced about working with Streisand.

Ben Stiller, after revealing that he was forced to “cold call” Barbra to convince her to star in the Focker franchise, surprised the packed Alice Tully audience when he introduced the 42nd president, who was joined by Hillary Clinton.

After a lengthy standing ovation, Clinton proceeded to get the biggest laughs of the night. Like when he suggested that Stiller and he should get together for a “Meet the Fockers” screening in Chappaqua, where they both own homes, so they could “watch Barbra give sex advice to old people–like me!”

The laughs continued when Clinton said, “Someone told me when I was elected president that politics was show business for ugly people. That was before Hillary got into it.”

When the night’s honoree was finally introduced, Streisand reflected on her film career and the way the industry has perceived her throughout the years.

“Ever since I can remember people have been calling me bossy and opinionated,” she noted. “Maybe that’s because I am. Three cheers for bossy women!”

Major American movies are part of the official lineup. Alexander Payne’s road-movie “Nebraska,” Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1960s-set folk-music-themed “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s dark-edged revenge thriller “Only God Forgives” and James Gray’s 1920s-set drama “The Immigrant” are officially set to compete for a Palme d’Or at a star-packed Cannes Film Festival.

The competition roster, whose jury will be presided over by Steven Spielberg, also includes Steven Soderbergh’s buzzed-about HBO pic “Behind the Candelabra,” turning on the relationship between Liberace and his younger lover, and Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Fur, adapted from an Off Broadway play.

Refn’s anticipated follow-up to his former Cannes selection “Drive,” “Only God Forgives,” starring Ryan Gosling as a British gangster hiding in Bangkok’s criminal underworld, was co-financed and co-produced by two Paris-based powerhouses, Wild Bunch and Gaumont, which share international sales.

Other notable French contenders include two Wild Bunch titles: Francois Ozon’s “Jeune et jolie,” about an upper-class teenage girl who prostitutes herself; and Abdellatif Kechiche’s coming-of-age drama “La Vie d’Adele,” starring Lea Seydoux.

The English-language debut of French helmer Guillaume Canet, “Blood Ties,” will play out of competition, along with J.C. Chandor’s “All Is Lost,” toplining Robert Redford.

The Un Certain Regard selection, which has gained a higher profile under Fremaux’s leadership, will open with Sofia Coppola’s glitzy L.A.-set crime/drama “The Bling Ring,” as previously announced.

The program will also play Rebecca Zlotowski’s sophomore picture “Grand Central,” starring Tahar Rahim and Lea Seydoux; James Franco’s “As I Lay Dying;” Claire Denis’ “The Bastards”; and recent Sundance top prize-winner “Fruitvale Station,” from Ryan Coogler.

Kicking off with Leonardo DiCaprio starrer “The Great Gatsby” on May 15 (as previously announced), Cannes will once again be star-studded affair with such stars as Gosling in “Forgives”; Benicio Del Toro in “Jimmy P.”; Matt Damon and Michael Douglas in “Candelabra”; Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan and John Goodman in “Llewyn Davis”; Emma Watson in “The Bling Ring”; Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Renner and Marion Cotillard in “The Immigrant”; Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, Clive Owen and Cotillard again in ”Blood Ties”; Berenice Bejo in “The Past”; and Seydoux in “La Vie d’Adele” and “Grand Central.”

2013 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL LINEUP

OPENER

•“The Great Gatsby” (Baz Luhrmann)

COMPETITION

•“Behind the Candelabra” (Steven Soderbergh)
•“Borgman” (Alex van Warmerdam)
•“The Great Beauty” (Paolo Sorrentino)
•“Grigris” (Mahamet Saleh-Haroun)
•“Heli” (Amat Escalante)
•“The Immigrant” (James Gray)
•“Inside Llewyn Davis” (Joel and Ethan Coen)
•“Jeune et jolie” (Francois Ozon)
•“Jimmy P.” (Arnaud Desplechin)
•“La Vie d’Adele” (Abdellatif Kechiche)
•“Like Father, Like Son” (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
•“Michael Kohlhaas” (Arnaud Despallieres)
•“Nebraska” (Alexander Payne)
•“Only God Forgives” (Nicolas Winding Refn)
•“The Past” (Asghar Farhadi)
•“Straw Shield” (Takashi Miike)
•“A Touch of Sin” (Jia Zhangke)
•“Un chateau en Italie” (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi)
•“Venus in Fur” (Roman Polanski)

OUT OF COMPETITION

•“All Is Lost” (J.C. Chandor)
•“Blood Ties” (Guillaume Canet)

UN CERTAIN REGARD

•OPENER: “The Bling Ring” (Sofia Coppola)
•“Anonymous” (Mohammad Rasoulof)
•“The Bastards” (Claire Denis)
•“Bends” (Flora Lau)
•“Death March” (Adolfo Alix Jr.)
•“Fruitvale Station” (Ryan Coogler)
•“Grand Central” (Rebecca Zlotowski)
•“La Jaula de Oro” (Diego Quemada-Diez)
•“L’image manquante” (Rithy Panh)
•“L’inconnu du lac” (Alain Guiraudie)
•“Miele” (Valeria Golino)
•“Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan” (Lav Diaz)
•“Omar” (Hany Abu-Assad)
•“Sarah prefere la course” (Chloe Robichaud)

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS

•“Blind Detective” (Johnnie To)
•“Monsoon Shootout” (Amit Kumar)

SPECIAL SCREENINGS

•“Bite the Dust” (Taisia Igumentseva)
•“Bombay Talkies” (Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Johar)
•“Max Rose” (Daniel Noah)
•“Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” (Stephen Frears)
•“Seduced and Abandoned” (James Toback)
•“Stop the Pounding Heart” (Roberto Minervini)
•“Week End of a Champion” (Roman Polanski)

CLOSER

•“Zulu” (Jerome Salle)

in the title role, Taissa Farmiga, Leslie Mann and Kirsten Dunst, will open Un Certain Regard on Thursday, May 16.

Inspired by a true story, The Bling Ring recounts a group of adolescents who are fascinated by “beautiful people” and the world of brands, tracking the whereabouts and activities of celebrities online so that they can rob their homes. They steal over three million dollars of luxury items: jewellery, clothing, shoes, etc. Among their victims are Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Rachel Bilson. The media nicknamed this gang the “Bling Ring”.

An American director, actress, producer and screenwriter, Sofia Coppola lives in Paris. Her first films Lick The Star (1996), Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in translation (2003), were very well received by critics and audiences, who recognized the authentic character of an auteur from her very first works. In 2003, she received the César for best foreign film for Lost in translation, which had already won an Oscar for best original script.

Sofia Coppola said, “I am happy to come back to the Festival de Cannes. Marie-Antoinette was in competition in 2006, I presented my first film Virgin Suicides at the Directors’ Fortnight and I am very proud now to open Un Certain Regard with my new film that will be screened for the first time before an audience. I can’t wait to be there…”

The Bling Ring will open in cinemas in France and around the world in June 2013.

Born in Copenhagen in May 1969, Thomas Vinterberg received his training at the National Film School of Denmark, graduating in 1993 as the school’s youngest student.

His first short films Last Round (Sidste Omgang, 1993) and The Boy Who Walked Backwards (Drengen der gik baglæns) (Le garçon qui marchait à reculons, 1995) won awards at a number of festivals.

In 1995, he partnered with Lars Von Trier and other artists to create Dogme95, a cinematographic movement that aimed to return to formal austerity in film making.

In 1998, when he was discovered by the public at large with his feature film The Celebration (Festen), he received the Festival de Cannes Jury Prize from the President of the Jury, Martin Scorsese. One year later, he returned to the Croisette to preside over the Short Film Jury.

In 2012, for the 65th edition of the Festival, he presented Jagten (The Hunt), which created a stir and for which lead actor Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award.

Considered as a young prodigy by the profession as a whole, the artistic range of Thomas Vinterberg is not limited only to film. He also made the video clip of the song The Day That Never Comes from the album Death Magnetic by the group Metallica.

He will succeed Tim Roth, last year’s President of the jury that awarded the top prize to the Mexican film After Lucia (Despues de Lucia), directed by Michel Franco.

The Prix Un Certain Regard will be awarded on Saturday 25 May, the day before the closing ceremony of the Festival.

The Bling Ring by Sofia Coppola: opening film

The screening of The Bling Ring by Sofia Coppola, with Emma Watson in the title role, Taissa Farmiga, Leslie Mann and Kirsten Dunst, will open Un Certain Regard on Thursday 16 May.

Inspired by a true story, The Bling Ring recounts a group of adolescents who are fascinated by “beautiful people” and the world of brands, tracking the whereabouts and activities of celebrities online so that they can rob their homes. They steal over three million dollars of luxury items: jewellery, clothing, shoes, etc. Among their victims are Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Rachel Bilson. The media nicknamed this gang the “Bling Ring”.

An American director, actress, producer and screenwriter, Sofia Coppola lives in Paris.

Her first films Lick The Star (1996), Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in translation (2003), were very well received by critics and audiences, who recognized the authentic character of an auteur from her very first works. In 2005 she received the César for best foreign film for Lost in translation, which had already won an Oscar for best original script.

Sofia Coppola said, “I am happy to come back to the Festival de Cannes. Marie-Antoinette was in competition in 2006, I presented my first film Virgin Suicides at the Directors’ Fortnight and I am very proud now to open Un Certain Regard with my new film that will be screened for the first time before an audience. I can’t wait to be there…”

The Bling Ring will open in cinemas in France and around the world in June 2013.