Cannes at 60

Fatih Akin achieved widespread acclaim with his film "Head On" ("Gegen die Wand"), which was the hit of the 2004 Berlin film festival. His latest film, which literally translated means "On the Other Side," is one of 22 entries in the film festival's central competition.

Organizers unveiled the selection for this year's Cannes festival on Thursday, saying they had programmed films that combined "heritage and modernity...great names and young hopefuls."

Akin told reporters on Thursday that he was immensely pleased that his film was nominated for the top award, for which he wrote the screenplay and co-produced.

"I've just arrived at where I wanted to go," he said. "We'll see where the journey goes from here."

Six lives

His film tells the story of six people whose lives take unexpected turns. As he did in "Head On," Akin explores the often emotionally laden points where Turkish and German culture intersect.

One character, a female university student, falls in love with a Turkish political activist who has fled from Istanbul to Germany, much to the horror of her mother. The life of a German professor of Turkish descent collides with that of his traditional father when he meets his father's female companion. She is working as a prostitute in Germany in order to pay for her daughter's studies in Istanbul.

"Auf der Anderen Seite" is scheduled to appear this fall in German cinemas.

Before 2004, no German film had made it into the festival's central competition for 11 years. In 2004, "The Edukators" made the cuts, and in 2005, Wim Wender's "Don't Come Knocking" was nominated.

Old pros and new faces

This year, veteran directors Quentin Tarantino, Emir Kusturica, Gus Van Sant and Wong Kar Wai will be vying against a large group of up-and-coming young filmmakers for the Golden Palm.

For the 60th festival, the red-carpet glamour will be stepped up, with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Matt Damon, Al Pacino and Andy Garcia all expected for the premiere of "Ocean's Thirteen," which will be screened out of competition.

Michael Moore, who won the Palm in 2004 for his biting documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," will be back with another out-of-competition film, "Sicko," about the US health system. British director Michael Winterbottom will be screening his film about the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl.

Wong, the Hong Kong director who was jury president last year, will be given the honor of opening the festival with "My Blueberry Nights," an English-language road-trip movie starring singer Norah Jones.

Quentin Tarantino -- who already won the Palm in 1994 for "Pulp Fiction" -- will present "Death Proof," a movie packed with the US director's trademark banter and bloodshed and which has been released in the US as half of a two-part gore collaboration called "Grindhouse."

They will be joined by several new faces, among them an Iranian, Marjane Satrapi, who will be bringing her popular comic books about life in Tehran to the big screen.

This year's Palme d'Or jury is headed by British director Stephen Frears, who made the award-winning film "The Queen." He will be accompanied by eight other personalities from the cinema and literary worlds, including actresses Toni Colette from Australia and Maggie Cheung from China, and Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk from Turkey.

The Cannes film festival runs from May 16 to May 27.