Cannes 2009 signals hard times for serious moviemakers, says Geoffrey Macnab

Footballer takes to the red carpet in support of school friends' film

One project certainly getting everyone geed up is the prospect of Terry Gilliam resurrecting his ambitions to make a movie based on Cervantes's "Don Quixote". Gilliam has hooked up with Oscar-winning British producer Jeremy Thomas. Screenwriter Tony Grisoni's script revolves around a film-maker who is charmed into Quixote's eternal quest for his lady-love, becoming an unwitting Sancho Panza. The move is the latest twist in a movie-making saga almost as epic as Cervantes' 17th-Century classic. Nine years ago, the original shoot suffered a series of setbacks captured in the documentary "Lost In La Mancha", which went on to became a cult hit in its own right.

Tale of life on a council estate acclaimed at film festival

Despite being just the fourth female president of the jury in 62 years, actress Isabelle Huppert said this meant little to her, or to womankind. "I don't believe there are male and female forms of writing," said the recipient of two previous Cannes Best Actress awards, "Cinema is universal." But fellow juror and British writer Hanif Kureishi questioned the lack of diversity: "I'm not sure we have had a black or Asian [president] and I'm not sure when that will occur."

As the world's movie stars and directors head for the French seaside resort, Jonathan Brown asks if it's possible to take a budget break in this Mediterranean haunt of the rich and famous

Just about now, Lars von Trier will be trundling off in a camper van (he hates to fly) from Denmark to France for the Cannes premiere of his latest feature, Antichrist. The journey takes five days there and five days back.

It is said that next month's Cannes Film Festival will be a more austere event than in previous years. The mind boggles at what this might mean for this annual gathering of the wealthy, pouting and famous on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Property entrepreneurs the Candy brothers will once again be taking their lavish yacht Candyscape to the Mipim real estate conference in Cannes this week.

East coast yachtsman Wilf Tolhurst was killed today when two British yachts collided in 20-knot north-easterly winds and confused seas on the opening day of the Regates Royales in the Bay of Cannes today.

The Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or was won by the French production Entre les murs (The Class) last night. The film, directed by Laurent Cantet, used teachers and students to chronicle a year in the life of an inner-city school. "The film we wanted to make had to be a reflection of French society – multiple, many-faceted, complex," said Cantet. "Sometimes also with friction that the film does not try to cover up."

There will be rows and controversies at this year's film festival – but nothing like the revolutionary fever that gripped the Croisette in 1968

A US-educated microbiologist who used to be president of Gaza's Islamic University is emerging as a possible candidate to head the "national unity" government that Palestinian leaders are predicting will replace the current Hamas-dominated cabinet.

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