Round up the usual suspects. The 67th Cannes film festival opens on Wednesday beneath azure skies, with hundreds of movies in the market, thousands of delegates on the prom and a rollcall of luminaries gracing the red carpet, from Mike Leigh to Jean-Luc Godard, David Cronenberg to the Dardenne brothers. Of the 19 directors competing for the crowning Palme d'Or award, no fewer than 13 have been nominated before. New blood runs thin at the front end of Cannes.
For festival director Thierry Frémaux, the issue of selection largely takes care of itself. "Great directors make great films," he says, "and they will always have a place in Cannes."
Yet critics claim that the world's most prestigious movie showcase increasingly runs the risk of becoming too cosy, too predictable, and too reliant on its rotating supergroup of international auteurs. So says Xan Brooks in the Guardian
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