Confirming the rumours that the official selection for the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) was far from finalised, the announcement press conference has been put back from Thursday April 17 to Wednesday April 23, in the late morning.

The International Critics’ Week (SIC) will thus be the first to unveil its programme on Monday April 21, followed by the Directors’ Fortnight on Tuesday April 22.
The latter is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and will organise a gala evening in Cannes on May 18, attended by directors from all over the world.

On the same day, there will be a screening of Olivier Jahan’s documentary 40x15 (co-produced by MK2 and France 4), which retraces the history of the Cannes sidebar and includes interviews with around 30 filmmakers (including Michael Haneke, Stephen Frears, Théo Angelopoulos, Atom Egoyan).

Moreover, the section headed by the delegate general Olivier Père has planned a series of retrospectives of its 40 years of programming. These will kick off in Paris at the cinéma Action (April 16-29), before hitting screens in Athens, Rome, Bucharest, New York, Los Angeles, Beirut, Seoul and Buenos Aires throughout the second half of 2008.