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There’s just something about mid-May that puts film at the forefront of all importance. The first string of big-budget blockbusters has already hit. Second and third sets of summer cinema have already hitched their trailers. And across the Atlantic, in a city called Cannes, one of the world’s most revered celebrations of the silver screen is set to take place. No matter whether its films came from the independent scene, from behind studio walls, or were summoned back after a 19-year hiatus, there’s plenty of fortune and glory to be found at the 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival.

Running May 14-25, the 2008 “Festival de Cannes” will offer an assortment of entries – both in and out of competition – from the world’s most sought after filmmakers, 19 of whom will be pursuing the coveted Palme d’Or, the competition’s top prize.

Presiding over this year’s feature film entries are several of worldwide cinema’s most respected authorities, including Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron, Italian director Sergio Castellitto, Hollywood actress Natalie Portman and Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. And bestowed with the highest honor, actor/director Sean Penn will serve as president of the international competition.

Bookending the two sides of Cannes, Fernando Meirelles’ dramatic thriller Blindness and Barry Levinson’s Hollywood satire What Just Happened? both promise ambitious adaptations of famous works, albeit from completely opposite sides of the literary spectrum.

Blindness, based off of José Saramago’s novel of the same name, tells the tale of a town inflicted by a blindness epidemic and the ensuing hysteria that follows. Along with stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, and Danny Glover, Meirelles faced not only the challenge of simulating blind characters, but likewise creating an entirely blind experience for the viewer. Attendees to this opener can only pray that Meirelles’ latest continues the trend he previously set with City of God and The Constant Gardener.

Closing the festival, What Just Happened? promises entertainment of an entirely different variety. Adapted from Art Linson’s What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line and featuring Robert De Niro as a jaded producer, Levinson’s latest effort satirizes the whole Hollywood process, much more self-mocking than – and perhaps caused by – Levinson’s more recent directorial offerings (Jack Black’s Envy and Robin Williams’ Man of the Year).