Young British talent is missing from Cannes line-up

While the usual chorus of 'where are the Brits?' is not likely to greet last week's announcement of the 2010 Cannes line-up, the selection of films by four UK directors does raise at least one big question: Where are the exciting new British talents?

Ridley Scott, director of Robin Hood, which will open this year's Festival on May 12, is 73; Mike Leigh, Britain's most reliable auteur - equally at home on the Croisette, the Venice Lido and the chilly red carpet of the Berlinale Palast, is 67; and Stephen Frears, whose Posy Simmonds adaptation Tamara Drewe screens out of competition, is nearly 69.

Fortunately, however, none of the trio shows the remotest sign of acting his age. What's more, they're in good company, competing for the Palme d'Or alongside Iran's Abbas Kiarostami (70) and France's Bertrand Tavernier (69).

The only Young Brit director to make the cut, albeit out of competition, is 43-year-old Sophie Fiennes, the latest of that dynasty to get a Cannes outing, following sister Martha (whose Chromophobia closed the Festival in 2005), not to mention half a dozen films starring brother Ralph. Her film, Under Your Cities Grass Will Grow, technically a Dutch production, is a documentary about German installation artist Anselm Kiefer.

There are a few films still to be added to the line-up; and more novice-friendly sidebars like the Critics' Week and the Directors' Fortnight are due to announce their selections this week, so there is still a chance for the UK Film Council to enter a new governmental era with proof of its ability to 'nurture film talent'.

Showing if not exactly waving the flag, meanwhile, is British playwright Jez Butterworth, who has co-written the screenplay for Doug Liman's competition entry Fair Game, about the outing by the Bush administration of CIA operative Valerie Plame. And British actresses will bag a fair amount of the Côte d'Azur limelight, with Kate Beckinsale on the jury and recent Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan playing Winnie Gecko in Oliver Stone's return to the world where greed used to be good, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which screens out of competition.

Finally Woody Allen, an honorary European these days, returns to his traditional out-of-competition slot with You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, shot on various locations around London last year, and starring such Brit stalwarts as Anthony Hopkins, Anna Friel and Ewen Bremner. Two of whom are quite young.

Official Selection

Tournée - Mathieu Amalric

Des Hommes et Des Dieux - Xavier Beauvois

Hors La Loi - Rachid Bouchareb

Biutiful - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Un Homme Qui Crie - Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

The Housemaid - IM Sangsoo

Copie Conforme - Abbas Kiarostami

Outrage - Takeshi Kitano

Poetry - Lee Chang-dong

Another Year - Mike Leigh

Fair Game - Doug Liman

You. My Joy - Sergei Loznitsa

La Nostra Vita - Daniele Luchetti

Utomlyonnye Solntsem 2 - Nikita Mikhalkov

La Princesse de Montpensier - Bertrand Tavernier

Loong Boonmee Raleuk Chaat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) - Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Films screening out of competition

Robin Hood (Ridley Scott)

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (Woody Allen)

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Oliver Stone)