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Marion Cotillard and Diane Kruger
Off to Cannes? Marion Cotillard and Diane Kruger could be sunning themselves in the South of France

The Cannes crew

Liz Hoggard
20 Apr 2009


PENELOPE, Brad, Pedro? We won't find out the selected films - and the star talent who will be showing up - before Thursday at the Cannes press conference. So until then it's the coolest guessing game. Here's our dream line-up for the film festival, which opens next month.

1. The Comeback Kid

Critics are predicting a return to form for US film-maker Quentin Tarantino. His latest, Inglourious Basterds starring Brad Pitt, Samuel L Jackson and Diane Kruger, follows a group of Jewish-American soldiers in Nazi-occupied France.

2. The American sweetheart

Cameron Diaz is a surprise lead in the new film from indie director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko). In The Box, a suburban couple with a young child receive a simple wooden box as a gift - which promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button but simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world.

3. The male totty

We've got Brad in the Tarantino; Jude in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; Ewan in Angels and Demons (the Da Vinci Code sequel); and Johnny Depp in the new Michael Mann, Public Enemies. But our money is on Michael Fassbender in Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank or Ben Whishaw, who plays poet John Keats in Jane Campion's Bright Star.

4. The enfants terribles

Those naughty Coen Brothers are back with A Serious Man. It's got a low-key ensemble cast but the plot sounds wild. A black comedy set in 1967, it centres on a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel when his wife prepares to leave him because his inept brother won't move out of the house.

5. The sex kitten

Nymphet Evan Rachel Wood is in the new Woody Allen, Whatever Works. Lily Cole is the eye candy in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. But Penélope Cruz will be stealing the headlines in Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces.

6. The ghost

The late Heath Ledger should be an eerie presence in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - but Jude Law and Colin Farrell also portray transformations of Ledger's character Tony as he travels through a dream world.

7. The savage

He won't fly and he brutalises his actors. But they queue up to work with Danish director Lars von Trier. His new film, Antichrist, with Willem Dafoe and Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg should be typically controversial.

8. The Lefty

Worthy? Gritty? Depressing? No, Ken Loach's Looking for Eric sounds a lovable comedy. Eric, a football fanatic postman, receives some life coaching from the famously philosophical Eric Cantona (and, yes, Cantona plays himself).

9. Most bonkers dresser

Look out for whacky dresser Marion Cotillard (Michael Mann gives her her first English-speaking role since she won the Oscar as Edith Piaf). Tilda never disappoints - she's sporting amazing long white hair in Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control. And Imelda Staunton (in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock) always goes native with her labels.

10. The provocateur

Will Michael Moore bring his still-untitled documentary about the financial crisis? Anti-Bush satire may be old hat, but he won at Cannes with Bowling for Columbine.

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