BEIJING, May 17 -- With the 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival just days away, cinephiles and industryites the world over are preparing for a new round of the best movies from around the globe. But there's a curious trend at this year's special anniversary event: a preponderance of Hollywood and American indie cinema. Never particularly lacking in press coverage, a raft of U.S. auteurs -- Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Gus Van Sant, Steven Soderbergh, Michael Moore, David Fincher, et. al. -- will likely once again grab the headlines in Cannes. But this being "le Festival international du film" (as it was once known) what about all those other countries' movies?

    Notwithstanding French director Olivier Assayas' "Boarding Gate," an English-language thriller starring Cannes "It-girl" Asia Argento (starring in three films in official selection) and American director Julian Schnabel's French-language "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," starring Cannes "It-boy" Matthieu Amalric (also in three films), here is a list of ten full-fledged foreign-language productions (in alphabetical order) generating buzz and anticipation among critics, distributors and festival programmers. Surely, other discoveries will emerge as the festival goes on, and some of these titles may not live up to expectations, but as with any festival, we can only hope for the best.     

    "The Age of Ignorance" ("L'Age des tenebres"), directed by Denys Arcand

    Canada (Out of Competition)

    International sales: Studio Canal     

    From French-Canadian director Arcand comes the third installment in a trilogy of films that began with 1986's "The Decline of the American Empire" and 2003's Oscar nominee "The Barbarian Invasions," a Cannes winner for best screenplay. Closing the festival on May 27, the film stars Quebecois actor Marc Labreche as a bored civil servant husband and father of two who dreams up wild fantasies -- a la Walter Mitty -- to make up for his dull life. Other high-profile cast members include Germany beauty Diane Kruger ("Troy") and singer Rufus Wainwright. At this point, it's too early to tell whether the film will aspire to the heights of his 1989 feature "Jesus of Montreal" or stumble like his 2000 Cannes opener "Stardom." But with Arcand at the helm, one can expect sharp social commentary: According to Telefilm Canada, the film begins with the following assumptions: "Democracy is dead, political corruption rampant, the family destroyed, ethics and morality gone; religions and esoteric practices flourish. Great epidemics lie in waiting. All that remains are games: electronic, Olympic, paraplegic and mediatic."     

    "The Edge of Heaven" ("Auf der anderen Seite des Lebens"), directed by Fatih Akin

    Germany-Turkey (Competition)

    International sales: The Match Factory GmbH     

    Fatih Akin's much-admired 2004 Berlin winner "Head-On" is the first of a planned trilogy of films on love, death and the devil. If "Head-On" was about embattled love, "The Edge of Heaven" chronicles the lives of six characters who are all united by death: Nejat (Baki Devrak), his widower father Ali (Tuncel Kurtiz), Yeter, his prostitute girlfriend (Nursel Koese), her Turkish daughter Ayten (Nurgel Yesilcay), her German friend Lotte (Patrycia Ziokowska) and Lotte's mother Susanne (Fassbinder regular Hanna Schygulla). One industry insider noted the screenplay is supposed to be excellent. Produced by Corazon International (backers of Akin's last two films "Crossing the Bridge" and "Head On"), "Edge of Heaven" could be a hard sell with U.S. buyers ("Head On" was a very modest success for Strand Releasing), but watch for the German-Turkish drama to be a potential critics' darling.     

    "Flight of the Red Balloon" ("Balloon Rouge"), directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien

    France (Un Certain Regard)

    International sales: Films Distribution     

    Inspired by Albert Lamorisse's 1956's French children's classic "The Red Balloon" (which also has a special screening at this year's festival), the film tracks a mysterious red balloon that follows seven-year-old Simon around Paris. His single-mother Suzanne (Juliet Binoche) is a puppeteer so completely absorbed in her new show, she hires Song Fang, a Taiwanese film student, to help her care for her son. Billed as Hou's first "Western" film, cinephiles will undoubtedly be curious to see how the Taiwanese master and Cannes competition regular ("Three Times," "Millennium Mambo," "Flowers of Shanghai") will make of this simple children's fable. If the lyrical trailer available on YouTube is any indication, Hou won't disappoint his fans.

    "The Man From London," directed by Bela Tarr

    Hungary-France-Germany (Competition)

    International sales: Fortissimo Films     

    After the tragically unexpected suicide of the film's French producer Humbert Balsan and the project's well-publicized collapse and re-launch, "The Man From London" finally arrives complete in Cannes, with cinephiles' anticipation high in the wake of the Hungarian master's previous art-film triumphs ("Werckmeister Harmonies," "Satantango"). Based on a short story by celebrated Belgian crime-fiction writer George Simenon, "The Man From London" follows a switchman at a railway station who witnesses a murder and ends up retrieving the dead man's suitcase, which is filled with money. Then according to an available synopsis, "Feelings of guilt and sudden wealth throw his life dominated by routine out of kilter." Shot by German-born filmmaker Fred Kelemen, the movie stars Czech actor Miroslav Krobot, and also features Tilda Swinton and Hungarian actors Janos Derzsi and Istvan Lenart.     

    "The Orphanage," directed by Juan Antonio Bayona

    Spain (Critic's Week)

    International sales: Wild Bunch; U.S. distributor: Picturehouse     

    Backed by Guillermo del Toro, this Spanish horror-thriller wowed distributors at Berlin's European Film Market where, based on a promo reel, the film sold to ten territories, including the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Australia and Latin America. The story focuses on a woman ("The Sea Inside's" Belen Rueda) who returns to the long abandoned orphanage where she grew up with plans to reopen it for disabled children. But once there, the old house stirs up forbidding forces and her 7-year-old son's imagination, who finds himself "an invisible friend." The 32-year-old Bayona is a first-time feature filmmaker, but he's widely known for his award-winning music videos, commercials and short films ("Mis vacaciones").     

    Bayona is joined in Critic's Week by a couple of other hot Spanish-speaking talents making their feature debuts: successful Mexican commercial director Simon Bross's "Bad Habits," which recently won a major prize at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival and was acquired for international sales by Fortissimo; and Mexican super-star Gael Garcia Bernal's "Deficit," which is about class conflict at a family gathering in Mexico.