Running through May 22, the Cannes Film Festival has been generating more cultural news than any sensible cinephile can handle. Luckily, ARTINFO France has been keeping up with the films, the politics, and, of course, the gossip. Below is our digest of the latest happenings. 

IRANIAN FILMMAKERS IN ABSENTIA

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Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof's new film "Goodbye" was smuggled out of Iran on DVD — the director didn't bother to apply for approval by the Iranian censorship committee, which is not known for being lenient to critical depictions of its iron-clad regime or to films made by dissident filmmakers. It was shown Saturday night in the "Un Certain Regard" category, which screens films that are not part of the official competition. Writing in the French paper Libération, Didier Péron was surprised that the film was not in the running for awards, but concluded that perhaps too much media attention would actually be detrimental to its director, who has received a six-year prison sentence because of his activism against the
government and been banned for making films for 20 years. Until this week, his passport was confiscated by the Iranian regime, and his wife came to Cannes to represent her husband on Saturday. Libération now reports, however, that Iran has lifted Masoulof's travel ban, according to his lawyer, Iman Mirza-Zadeh. It is not known whether or not he will travel to Cannes, since his film was already shown on Saturday.

Filmed mostly in secrecy, "Goodbye" directly tackles the impossibility of living normally in Iran today. The heroine, a lawyer who wants to flee the country, comes up with a complicated scheme to leave Iran, hoping to give birth in Sweden while she is attending a conference there. Her plan is to acquire Swedish citizenship for herself and her child so that they can live in a democratic country. But her quest to attain freedom turns into an impossible dream, marked by bureaucratic procedures, illegal risk-taking, and corrupt human relationships.

Another Iranian director, Jafar Panahi, also has a movie at Cannes, "This is Not a Film." Like Rasoulof, he is facing a six-year prison term and has been forbidden to make movies for 20 years. A letter in support of the two filmmakers written by the Cannes Festival, the Cinémathèque Française, and the French dramatic writers' guild Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques has been sent to the Iranian embassy in France with over 17,000 signatures, including those of Sophie Calle, Catherine Deneuve, Abel Ferrara, Sean Penn, Sam Raimi, and Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-born author of "Persepolis."

SCANDALOUS ITALIANS 

Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti showed his new film "Habemus Papam" on Friday to an international audience. The movie tells of a fictional would-be Pope's hesitations at taking the reins of the Vatican. After seeing a psychoanalyst (played by Moretti), the panicked pontiff decides to give up the papacy. The film was enthusiastically received by journalists, but sowed discord in Italy, where its premiere competed with the beatification of John Paul II and where it was accused of being anti-Catholic. Moretti described his annoyance to Le Monde: "They point out the fact that I give interviews, or that I don't, that I'm on such-and-such a television station... it's as if people want to find in the film the confirmation of all the scandals they've heard about in the media." Showing his film in Cannes is a welcome respite: "the film is back in the place where it should be, in the theater."

Meanwhile, another Italian director was fêted at Cannes: Bernardo Bertolucci. The 71-year-old director of "Last Tango in Paris" and "The Last Emperor" — who had never received a Palme d'Or at Cannes during his career — has now been awarded an honorary Palme d'Or for his achievements as a director. In his acceptance speech, given from his wheelchair, Bertolucci gave a rousing, if veiled, expression of anti-Berlusconi sentiment, dedicating his prize "to all Italians who still have the strength to fight, to criticize, to be outraged."

Present in the audience was the new Italian culture minister Giancarlo Galan. Last year, culture minister Sandro Bondi, who stepped down in March after losing his support following various controversies, boycotted the festival die to his objections over an Italian documentary. The film, "Draquila: Italy Trembles" probed Berlusconi's response to the devastating 2009 Aquila earthquake. Not to be outdone in surliness by his predecessor, Galan took the opportunity while in Cannes to attack the Venice Film Festival, whose building needs to undergo a costly asbestos-removal project. "I don't intend to insist on constructing a building, given the high costs of the operation," Galan told Le Monde. "We would have to invest 15 million more euros [$20 million]. As a citizen, I'm ashamed to spend all that money to dig a hole."

TERRENCE MALICK = STANLEY KUBRICK?

Over the weekend, Cannes screened Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life," a production that has been shrouded in secrecy. The film stars Brad Pitt as the 1950s Texas father of a character played by Sean Penn. Malick's idiosyncratic brand of filmmaking kept the actors in the dark about which scenes were going to be filmed when. "We were in costume and we could develop the characters as we liked, and almost film scenes when we felt like it," Pitt told Le Monde Magazine. "The flip side of this freedom is that you are permanently in character."

The film has had mixed reviews at Cannes. Studio Ciné's Fabrice Leclerc compared Malick to Kubrick and described it as a "trippy web of brilliance and inventiveness... a narrative experiment and a visual frenzy that leaves you speechless." However, also writing for Studio Ciné, Thomas Baurez thinks the movie is just "in class in philosophy for dummies," with an aesthetic sensibility that is "halfway between a computer screensaver and a Michael Jackson video from his 'Heal the World' period." Ouch!

Everyone had been waiting to see if Penn and the reclusive Malick would walk the red carpet before the screening. Although Penn's screen-time has been compared to the brief appearance by Carla Bruni in Woody Allen's latest flick, the star was nevertheless there to promote "The Tree of Life," along with Pitt, who obligingly signed autographs and who was accompanied by Angelina Jolie. Malick, however, got special permission to enter the screening room by the back door.