IN A modern city they claim that you are never more than eight feet away from a rat.
Any festival that starts with The Da Vinci Code can only get better, and Pedro Almodovar's sublime melodrama Volver has been everyone's favourite. A tangled tale of mothers and daughters told with his trademark compassion, it features an outstanding
performance from Penelope Cruz that takes its inspiration from Sophia Loren's iconic tour de force in the 1960s classic Two Women. The film opens in Britain in August and would seem an essential title for Edinburgh's 60th Film Festival.
The unifying theme of this year's films has been an attempt to make sense of the unpredictable and frightening times in which we live. In the case of Amores Perros director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel, this means a melancholy meditation on the way humanity is divided by misunderstanding, prejudice and fear.
In the case of Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, it means an indigestible mess of futuristic paranoia that no amount of editing can save.
Richard Linklater also disappointed with Fast Food Nation, an attempt to pick the dramatic meat from the bones of the non-fiction bestseller that left many of us wondering where's the beef?
Sofia Coppola wasn't even attempting a definitive statement on the human condition. Instead, her Marie Antoinette is a frivolous, fun-filled attempt to make 18th-century Versailles accessible to 21st-century audiences.
Filmmaker Wong Kar-wai and a jury that includes Samuel L Jackson, Monica Bellucci and Tim Roth will announce their prize winners tonight. There seem few safe predictions, although there would be blushes all round if Almodovar was overlooked. Penelope Cruz is a leading contender for Best Actress, but her strongest competition could come from Kate Dickie for the widely praised Scottish drama Red Road, a powerful saga of loss, guilt, revenge and redemption. Cannes has put Dickie on the map, saluting a committed, draining performance revealing the emotional conflicts within a woman struggling to resolve the unbearable legacy of a tragic accident.
Cannes has played its part in acknowledging a list of Scottish talents including Peter Mullan and Lynne Ramsay, so a prize for Red Road is not inconceivable.
It has been a good year for Scottish filmmakers wheeling and dealing in the back streets of Cannes. Festival producer Chris Young was here on a quick visit before he begins shooting the Gaelic language feature Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle on Skye tomorrow. Irvine Welsh is drumming up finance for his directorial debut: a version of Alan Warner's novel The Man Who Walks that should go into production in 2007.
Producer Bob Last was celebrating the news that Pathé France was committed to fully financing an $11m animated feature from Edinburgh-based Sylvain Chomet, something that represents the biggest ever inward investment in Scottish filmmaking. It should be ready for Cannes 2009 and it looks like Ramsay is also back in business after the announcement that she is writing a screen adaptation of the Lionel Shriver novel We Need To Talk About Kevin, and has written an adult thriller titled Peter, Paul And Mary.
In the city where everyone appears to be a celebrity, Scotland easily punches above its weight and even the young man in a natty black and white striped shirt striding down the Croisette has a familiar look. It is indeed Martin Compston. Incroyable.
