Five Chinese films made the cut for this year's Cannes Film Festival with Lou Ye's Summer Palace taking the charge as the only Chinese and Asian film screening in competition. 

 

The Chinese mainland production focuses on the intense relationship between two art students against a backdrop of social unrest in China and Berlin in the 1980s. It is now pending approval from China Film Bureau, which requires all completed film to seek permission before it can participate in overseas festivals.

 

Summer Palace is competing with 18 other films for the Golden Palm Award. This year, the competition jury is headed up by Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai, the first Chinese president of the jury. His team consists of eight members, including Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.

 

Hong Kong director Johnnie To scores an out-of-competition berth this year for gangster drama Election 2, the much anticipated sequel to the first Election which was in competition last year.

 

Su Chao Pin's Silk, a horror film set in Taiwan about an energy researcher who captures the first human ghost, will also be screened out of competition.

 

On the Un Certain Regard sidebar, Hong Kong-Thailand co-production Re-cycle is selected as the closing film. Directed by the Pang brothers, Danny and Oxide, of the Eye franchise fame, the horror film features Lee Sinje as a popular writer who repeatedly sees a mysterious woman who turns out to be the heroine of her new book.

 

Also in the Un Certain Regard is Chinese director Wang Chao's Luxury Car, which follows an old man who goes to the city in search of his son.

 

The 59th Cannes Film Festival will take place from May 17 - 28.

 

(hkfilmart May 9, 2006)