Cannes'surprising currents: Italy, Australia and Romania may make strongest waves at '06 Fest

While film festivals and distributors have recently showcased a number of solid Aussie films, such as "Ways," "Somersault," "Little Fish," and "The Proposition," Australia's market share last year was only 2.8%, according to the Australian Film Commission, lower than its 13-year average of 5%.

But the industry is turning around, says Victoria Buchan, a spokesperson for the Film Finance Corporation, the primary government agency for funding production. "We have invested in four of the five feature films to be screened during Cannes," she says, via email. "In July 2004 we instituted a number of significant changes to the method of funding feature films" -- Variety reports such alterations as allowing more private investors to recoup investments and choosing films based on consultants' evaluations rather than market concerns. "We believe these changes have been very positive for the industry," she adds, "and that the industry has responded to the changed environment very well."

Indeed, foreign sales agent Arclight Films has a hand in a number of anticipated Australian films in this year's Cannes market, including "Romulus, My Father," starring Eric Bana and Franke Potente, the "Gallipoli"-compared World War II combat film "Kokoda" and "2:37," the high-school set drama from 22-year-old self-taught upstart Murali K. Thalluri.

Spanish-language films and directors will also dominate in Cannes, with a hefty contingent from Mexico. Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu bring their latest internationally financed projects to the competition, respectively, "Pan's Labyrinth," and "Babel," while newbie Francisco Vargas unveils his feature debut "El Violin," and American Film Institute-trained up-and-comer Gerardo Naranjo ("Malachance") shows off his Critics Week entry about aimless young people "Drama/Mex."

Other Latin contenders include films from Spain (Pedro Almodovar's already heralded release "Volver", Manuel Huerga's Un Certain Regard entry "Salvador," starring Daniel Bruhl as a Franco-era anarchist bank-robber); Argentina ("Cronica de una fuga," the latest from "Bolivia's" Adrian Caetano, and Lisandro Alonso's special Directors Fortnight screening "Fantasma"); and for the first time ever, Paraguay (Paz Encina's Un Certain Regard film "Hamaca Paraguaya," about two elderly parents waiting for their veteran son to return from a war).

If multiple pictures hailing from Paraguay and Portugal also signify shifts in world cinema currents, the three Romanian films at this year's Cannes must be some kind of record. Hot on the heels of Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu," which won last year's Un Certain Regard prize, comes Catalin Mitulescu's "The Way I Spent the End of the World," also screening in the section. Directors Fortnight will premiere Corneliu Porumboiu's "Did It Happen or Not?," while Critics Week unveils Cristian Nemescu's featurette "Marilena de la P7."

All graduates of Romania's National University for Theater and Film in Bucharest and between the ages of 28 (Nemescu) and 35 (Mitulescu), these directors belong to a "whole new generation of filmmakers," says Corina Suteu, director of New York's Romanian Culture Institute, who notes that two of the films deal with the anti-Communist Romanian Revolution of 1989 "in a dark and humorous way."

"The tone is very different," she says, in comparison to previous Romanian works. "This is a generation that can be distant, critical and loving. They're much more empowered and they don't need to be symbolic to speak about the complicated reality of what's going on in Romania." Since 2004, when a new party took over the country, there has also been a loosening of financing rules in Romania. "This government introduced a concept of externalizing the state funds and a more liberal-based principle," says Suteu. "It's no longer so centralized."

And neither, apparently, is Cannes' diverse 2006 selection.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Anthony Kaufman writes a world cinema column for
indieWIRE and contributes regularly to Variety, the Wall Street Journal Online, Time Out and Filmmaker Magazine.