Tarantino, Coens,
Van Sant at Cannes

Quentin Tarantino, the Coen brothers, and Gus Van Sant--all past winners of the Cannes Film Festival--are in the running for a second trophy as the French Riviera festival celebrates its 60th anniversary next month.

Tarantino will show his killer-on-wheels movie Death Proof, the Coens will play their Rio Grande adventure No Country for Old Men, and Van Sant will screen Paranoid Park, about a skateboarder who accidentally kills a security guard.

The four Americans have already won the Palme d'Or, Cannes's top prize. Bosnian director Emir Kusturica has taken it twice; his new movie at Cannes is Promise Me This, organizers said Thursday as they announced the lineup for the May 16-27 festival.

The opening-night movie, My Blueberry Nights, is from another Cannes veteran, Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai. It stars singer Norah Jones in her acting debut as well as Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Rachel Weisz.

Cannes strives every year for a lineup that hits just the right balance of Hollywood blockbusters and small art-house films, mixing in surprise hits by unknowns and the occasional scandal-sparking screening. The pressure is on this year as Cannes celebrates a major anniversary.

Cannes Film Festival President Gilles Jacob said he strove to ''mix heritage and modernity, great filmmakers and start-ups.''

Of the 22 films in the lineup, 13 are by directors who have never appeared in the main competition before.

Newcomer David Fincher (Fight Club) will compete with his newest, Zodiac, about the hunt for the serial killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay area during the late 1960s.

Cartoonist Marjane Satrapi will show the screen adaptation of her graphic novel Persepolis, a memoir of growing up in Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Her codirector is Vincent Paronnaud.

American painter Julian Schnabel, who made the movie Before Night Falls, is showing a French-language movie. Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) is based on a memoir by a French magazine editor who became paralyzed after a stroke and learned to write again by blinking his eyelid into a sensor.

Some of the most highly awaited movies are not in the running for prizes. Michael Moore, who won the Palme d'Or for Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004, will be back with another irreverent documentary, Sicko, about health care in America.

Ocean's Thirteen will screen, as will A Mighty Heart, with Angelina Jolie playing the widow of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and slain in Pakistan.

Martin Scorsese doesn't have a movie at Cannes, but he'll be busy. The Oscar-winning director (The Departed) will give a master class on moviemaking to students and film buffs, and he'll announce the creation of a new cinema foundation. He won Cannes's top prize with Taxi Driver in 1976.

British director Stephen Frears (The Queen) leads the jury at the festival. The Palme d'Or and other awards will be announced May 27.

Among filmmakers in the running, the Coens already won the Palme d'Or in 1991 for Barton Fink. Tarantino won in 1994 for Pulp Fiction, and Van Sant was honored in 2003 for Elephant. Kusturica won twice: in 1985 for When Father Was Away on Business and again in 1995 for Underground.

The movies in competition at the Cannes Film Festival as announced Thursday, listed by director and director's nationality, followed by special out-of-competition showings. Festival runs May 16-27. (AP)

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In Competition:

My Blueberry Nights, Wong Kar-wai, China (opening night film)

Auf Der Anderen Seite (On the Other Side), Fatih Akin, Germany

Une Vieille Maitresse (An Old Mistress), Catherine Breillat

No Country for Old Men, Joel and Ethan Coen, United States

Zodiac, David Fincher, United States

We Own the Night, James Gray, United States

Les Chansons d'Amour, Christophe Honore, France

Mogari No Mori, Naomi Kawase, Japan

Breath, Kim Ki-duk, South Korea

Promise Me This, Emir Kusturica, Bosnia

Secret Sunshine, Lee Chang-Dong, South Korea

4 Luni, 3 Saptamini Si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), Cristian Mungiu, Romania

Tehilim, Raphael Nadjari, France

Stellet Licht (Silent Light), Carlos Reygadas, Mexico

Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, Iran and France

Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Julian Schnabel, United States

Import Export, Ulrich Seidl, Austria

Alexandra, Alexandr Sokurov, Russia

Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino, United States

The Man From London, Bela Tarr, Hungary

Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant, United States

Izgnanie (The Banishment), Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia

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Out of Competition:

L'age des Tenebres (The Age of Darkness), by Denys Arcand, Canada (closing-night film)

Sicko, Michael Moore, United States

Ocean's Thirteen, Steven Soderbergh, United States

A Mighty Heart, Michael Winterbottom, Britain

Go Go Tales, Abel Ferrara, United States

U2 3D, Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, Ireland and United States

11th Hour, Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, United States

The War, Lynn Novick and Ken Burns, United States

He Fengming (Chronicle of a Chinese Woman), Wang Bin