Jury President Frears Defends Absence of British Films

Stephen Frears, who yesterday became only the second ever Brit to take up the role of president of the festival jury, yesterday defended the absence of British films in this year's competition.

Last year British success was spearheaded by his own film, The Queen, and Ken Loach's taking of the Palme d'Or with The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

"The fact that there are no British films ... is of no significance at all," he said. "Film distribution is a complicated business; I guess Ken [Loach's] next film will be ready for the Venice film festival in the autumn. You can't read anything into it at all."

He added: "The revival in British film-making is certainly not down to me. A lot of very good films are made in the UK. Of course, we spend our lives working in a world dominated by American cinema. We keep going, half in resistance; though I love American films as much as anyone else. We have to live with [the domination of the US], and it makes it harder."

Asked whether the government provided sufficiently strong support for film-making, he said: "Clearly not enough. But the new tax arrangements are in place and I think that will make things easier," referring to the new system of tax credit payable as a percentage of production expenditure in the UK. "Things are very difficult for British film-makers; but I don't think that's anything to do with Cannes."

The role of president of the jury at Cannes is an honour that has been accorded to some of the greatest names in cinema, including Tennessee Williams, Martin Scorsese and Ingrid Bergman - and, in 1984, Dirk Bogarde, the only other Brit. His fellow jurors this year include Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, actor Toni Collette and Sarah Polley, director of the recent film Away From Her, starring Julie Christie.

Pamuk said he expected the judging process to involve "going to the movies with a child's enthusiasm and eventually saying, 'Daddy, this is my favourite'."

The films they will have to choose from this year include David Fincher's Zodiac, starring Jake Gyllenhaal; Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men. Tilda Swinton stars in the highly anticipated The Man from London by Hungarian Bela Tarr, best known for his film The Werckmeister Harmonies.

Films premiering out of competition include Michael Moore's latest assault on the US government, Sicko, a documentary about healthcare provision; and Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart, about Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter kidnapped and killed in Karachi while investigating the links between al-Qaida and the Pakistani intelligence services.

The festival opened last night with Jude Law gracing the red carpet: he stars in this year's opening film, My Blueberry Nights, the first English-language movie by the acclaimed Wong Kar-wei, the Chinese director behind 2046 and In the Mood for Love. The film's female lead is Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones, making her acting debut as a heartbroken young New Yorker who forms a friendship - sealed over large portions of blueberry pie - with Law, who plays a Mancunian cafe owner, a former marathon runner who has hung up his trainers to wait for his lost lover to return to him. Rachel Weisz co-stars.

Jones was approached by Wong because "the thing that really attracted me to her was her voice; it is very cinematic. It is a very fine instrument, containing many different characters. And when I look at her face I see many different stories in it."

Law said he had been thinking about Tom Courtenay in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner when he created his character. "I wanted [him] to be very grounded, a good northern English personality trait," he said.

Of working in English, Wong said: "Through the years I have seen a lot of films made about China by foreigners and often they are very embarrassing. I always wanted to make films in a different language but I wanted to avoid making those kind of mistakes."