The official 2008 Cannes Film Festival announcement went up just after 3 am this morning, and the ambiguity about Steven Soderbergh‘s two-headed Che Guevara drama — The Argentine and Guerilla — has been removed. It will definitely play there (possibly with The Argentine in some kind of not-quite-finished form, but whatever) and glory friggin’ hallelujah!

Once again it feels as if the festival will have an ambitious centerpiece — a long-haul piece de resistance by one of our country’s finest filmmakers that journos can argue about and pick over and send messages home about and piss off the Miami Cubans with. All is now well with the world except for the sociopathic fiendishness of Hillary Clinton.
As reported last night by Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, Clint Eastwood‘s Changeling (is there a “The” in the title or not?) is also locked in.
As predicted earlier, Steven Spielberg‘s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda will play there out of competition, as will Woody Allen‘s Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Walter Salles‘ Linha de passe, an urban road movie, will play in Cannes — “mostly set in Sao Paulo’s high-rise hell, about four soccer star wannabe brothers,” says Variety’s report.
Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne willl bring The Silence of Lorna. France’s Arnaud Desplechin returns with A Christmas Tale, a family drama with Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric. Atom Egoyan will arrive with Adoration. Wim Wenders will bring The Palermo Shooting, and Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan will deliver Daydreams, a kind of detective drama.
James Toback‘s Tyson, a doc about the controversial former heavyweight champion, will play in Un Certain Regard.
Jia Zhangke‘s 24 City “may well be the only major Chinese film at Cannes,” says the Variety piece, due to “a current bottleneck in the Chinese censorship process, which includes authorizing overseas travel.”

James Toback, Mike Tyson

In Competition:
24 City, China, Jia Zhangke
Adoration, Canada, Atom Egoyan
Changeling, U.S., Clint Eastwood
Che (The Argentine, Guerrilla) Spain, Steven Soderbergh
Un Conte de noel, France, Arnaud Desplechin
Daydreams, Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Delta,Germany-Hungary, Kornel Mundruczo
Il Divo, Paolo Sorrentino, Italy
Gomorra, Italy, Matteo Garrone
La Frontiere de l’aube, France, Philippe Garrel
Leonera, Argentina-South Korea, Pablo Trapero
Linha de Passe, Brazil, Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas
La Mujer sin cabeza, Argentina, Lucrecia Martel
My Magic, Singapore, Eric Khoo
The Palermo Shooting, Germany, Wim Wenders
Serbis, Philippines, Brillante Mendoza
The Silence of Lorna, U.K.-France, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Synecdoche, New York, U.S., Charlie Kaufman
Waltz With Bashir, Israel, Ari Folman
Out of Competition:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, U.S., Steven Spielberg
Kung Fu Panda, U.S., Mark Osborne, John Stevenson
The Good, the Bad, the Weird, South Korea, Kim Jee-woon
Vicky Cristina Barcelona, U.S.-Spain, Woody Allen
Midnight Screenings:
Maradona, Spain-France, Emir Kusturica
Surveillance, U.S., Jennifer Lynch
The Chaser, South Korea, Na Hong-jin

Special Screenings:
Ashes of Time Redux, China, Wong Kar-wai
Of Time and the City, U.K., Terence Davies
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, U.S.-U.K., Marina Zenovich
Sangue Pazzo (Crazy Blood), Italy-France, Marco Tullio Giordana
Screening of the President of the Jury:
The Third Wave, U.S., Alison Thompson
Un Certain Regard:
A festa da menina morta, Brazil, Matheus Nachtergaele
Afterschool, U.S., Antonio Campos
De Ofrivilliga, Sweden, Ruben Ostlund
Je veux voir, France, Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
Johnny Mad Dog, France, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire
La vie moderne (profiles paysans), France, Raymond Depardon
Los Bastardos, Mexico, Amat Escalante
Milh handha al-bahr (Salt of This Sea), Palestine, Annemarie Jacir
O’ Horten, Norway-Germany, Bent Hamer
Soi Cowboy, U.K., Thomas Clay
Tin Che, (Parking), Taiwan, Chung Mong-Hong
Tokyo!, France-Japan, Bong Joon-ho, Michel Gondry, Leos Carax
Tokyo Sonata, Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Tulpan, Germany, Sergey Dvortsevoy
Tyson, U.S., James Toback
Versailles, France, Pierre Schoeller
Wendy and Lucy, U.S., Kelly Reichardt
Cloud Nine, Germany, Andreas Dresen
Yi ban haishui, yi ban huoyan, China, Fendou Liu