The Cannes Film Festival has officially announced that Fernando Meirelles‘ Blindness (Miramax, 9.12) will open the festival on Wednesday, 5.15. Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal costar.

Gwynneth Paltow during shooting of Two Lovers

On top of which a third French film — Laurent Cantet‘s Entre Les Murs, with Francois Begaudeau — has been added to the Competition:
An American film has also been added to the Competition slate: James Gray‘s Two Lovers, a Brooklyn-set romantic drama about a guy (River Phoenix) torn between the good woman his parents wish he would marry and his beautiful but volatile new neighbor (Gwynneth Paltrow).
As tipped earlier by Variety, Steve McQueen‘s Hunger will open Un Certain Regard on Thursday, 5.15.
French actress Jeanne Balibar and the Iranian author-director Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) have joined the jury, which will be led this year by Sean Penn.
And finally, it turns out that Barry Levinson‘s What Just Happened? — the Sundance bomb costarring Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Catherine Keener, Robin Wright Penn, John Turturro and Sean Penn — will close the festival after all. De Niro will present the Palm d’Or at the closing night ceremonies.