- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday May 27 2003 10.58 BST
Nicole Kidman in Dogville: No stranger to demanding auteurs
The critical consensus is that Cannes was half-empty this year, but deals are still being struck for the festival's more talked-about films.
Lions Gate Films, the indie-ish distributor behind the forthcoming young-Hitler drama Max, has acquired the North American rights to the festival's ungarlanded critical hit Dogville, by maverick Danish director Lars von Trier. Despite a highly bankable lead in the comely shape of Nicole Kidman, Dogville will be something of a commercial risk in the US as it was widely seen (not least by Von Triers) as an attack on US culture.
Meanwhile, the powerful "mini-major" Miramax put all its chips on a French-language Canadian film, Les Invasions Barbares. But Miramax's big boss Harvey Weinstein is no fool, and the movie bagged the festival's best actress and best screenplay honours.
Lastly there's good news for Afghanistan's renascent film industry as United Artists bought US distribution rights for Osama, the sad tale of a young girl living under the Taliban forced to disguise herself as a boy in order to find work to feed her family.
What with US distribution arranged for an open cinematic attack on the country, a Quebecois family drama, and a film named after the US's public enemy number one, let no one say there isn't a sense of adventure in the American film industry. At least until they announce Terminator 4.
