IFC snaps up ‘Four Weeks;’ who will ring ‘Bell’?

As the hoopla at Cannes finally shows signs of peaking, a number of U.S players came up for air, either to announce pictures they’ve bought or to trumpet pictures they’ve sold.

With so much money pouring into the international film business, and with the competition for top titles so intense year-round, most outfits that can afford to are stepping up to acquire product before it’s even made.

A half-dozen of the top U.S. players — Summit, Par Vantage, Picturehouse, the Weinstein Co. and Sony Classics among them — have been circling a handful of fest titles, with various degrees of “must-have” enthusiasm.

Cocktail scuttlebutt here has almost always included the Competition title Julian Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” whose distrib Pathe put on another screening for buyers at 4 p.m. Tuesday. No deal was expected before that.

Other fest titles that attracted more than nibbles include the Romanian title called “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days.”

Directed by Christian Mungiu, pic had its gala unveiling Thursday and has since set cinephile tongues wagging. IFC bought the picture for an undisclosed sum Tuesday.

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On Sunday Morning, 12 a.m. to be exact, instead of people excited to go see the midnight screening of U2 3D just to experience the greatest that is U2, they actually got to REALLY experience, in real lifeD. U2 actually performed on the steps of the Palais de Festival. How cool is that?!

The big movie at Cannes today is A Mighty Heart starring Angelina Jolie premieres at Cannes today ( 10:45 france). Below you can check out the trailer. It is produced by Brad Pitt’s company Plan B/Paromount. Speaking of Mr. Pitt, Ocean’s 13 makes it Cannes debut on Thursday. That will be one crazy red carpet.

The Cannes Film Festival is preparing for the opening of its 60th edition on Wednesday May 16th. The Jury, under its President, Stephen Frears, and composed of Maggie Cheung, Toni Collette, Maria De Medeiros, Sarah Polley, Marco Bellocchio, Orhan Pamuk, Michel Piccoli, and Abderrahmane Sissako, meets in Cannes for the first time this evening for a working session.

Tomorrow, after the ceremony of the steps for Wong Kar Wai’s film My Blueberry Nights, in competition, German actress Diane Kruger will introduce the Opening Ceremony. This will be the occasion for the world premiere of Absurda, a short film made by David Lynch and dedicated to movie theatres as a surprise gift for the Festival, to mark its anniversary.

To embody this 60th anniversary, the Festival has imagined a symbolic couple: an alliance of wisdom with modernity, experience with grace. Manoel de Oliveira, the only director to have made films ever since the silent era, and princess Shu-Qi, symbol of our dreams of the Orient, will declare the 60th Festival open.