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A powerful film by hot German-Turkish director Fatih Akin about two families bridging the East-West divide after tragedy strikes, emerged Wednesday as a front-runner at Cannes.

Legendary Fassbinder muse Hanna Schygulla heads a remarkable cast of Germans and Turks in The Edge of Heaven, the second film in a trilogy that began with Head On the international art-house hit that sent Akin's career soaring.

The hit movie dealt with love in a story about a pair of suicidal Turks set in Hamburg and Istanbul. The new film confronts death in a convincing tale of loss and forgiveness that moved many to tears at its premiere.

A documentary on Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, whose murder last year caused a growing rift between Moscow and the West, is to be shown as a late entry at Cannes, organizers said.

The film, entitled Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case, by directors Andrei Nekrasov and Olga Konskaya will be part of the high profile festival's official selection.

Litvinenko died an agonizing death in a London hospital after ingesting a fatal dose of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope.

In a letter dictated on his hospital deathbed, Litvinenko, who had acquired British citizenship weeks before he was poisoned, accused the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin of his murder.

Moscow dismissed the accusation as ridiculous and denies that its security services were involved in any way.

British police have said they want to try former Russian spy Andrei Luguvoy for his murder, setting London on course for a diplomatic standoff with the Kremlin, which is considered unlikely to agree to his extradition.

North Korea's first film bidding for buyers at the Cannes market provides a rare look at the fortress nation seen through teenage eyes.

The Schoolgirl's Diary, one of only two films produced from Pyongyang last year, chronicles a girl's life through her school years, grappling with peer pressure and family problems much the same as those the world over.

"It is not pure propaganda," said James Velaise of Pretty Pictures, who snapped up distribution rights at the Pyongyang filmfest last September, a two-yearly event barred to US movie types but open to a handful of European and Communist nations.

The film, which reportedly saw eight million admissions at home last year, or roughly one out of three North Koreans, will be released in France at the end of the year.

The plot sees Su-ryeon, younger daughter of a researcher and a science librarian, complaining of the absence of her work-obsessive father.

The mother too spends little time with her and soccer-playing sister Su-ok, working through the nights at home translating scientific documents — by hand — for the husband.

But after the mother falls ill of cancer and the father cracks a computer conundrum, Su-ryeon finally comes to realize she's been selfish and self-centred all along.

Robert Rodriguez will take over the remake of Barbarella, due out next year on the 40th anniversary of the cult science-fiction fantasy, Variety magazine said.

Texas-born Mexican-American Rodriguez said he was looking forward to the new version of the camp film starring Jane Fonda and her scantily-clad intergalactic adventures.

Legendary Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, 87, earlier this year completed a deal to secure rights for the remake of Barbarella. The film, based on the French comic-book creation of Jean-Claude Forest, was a box-office flop on its release but has since acquired cult status and influencing rock acts such as Duran Duran and Prince.

Kenneth Branagh will star alongside Tom Cruise in a World War II thriller about a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, a report said Tuesday.

The British actor-director will play a German general who advises Cruise's character and helps formulate a plan to murder Hitler in the film, Variety reported.

The movie is based on a real-life plot hatched by German generals to kill Hitler during World War II, while Richard Gere is to star in a new drama about a college professor who forms an unbreakable bond with an abandoned dog, it was reported on Tuesday.
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