Perhaps it's appropriate that the documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" received a special screening at this year's Cannes Film Festival, considering that its firm distribution deal really does seem like something special. During the latest Sundance Film Festival, "Wanted and Desired" became the first purchase after days of trepidation emanating from niche distributors -- an indicator of the dispiriting trend among buyers that continued into the Cannes Film Festival, although there was a slight burst of activity as the event comes to a close this weekend. The increasing difficulty to get American distributors interested is all the more evident now, with diagnoses for the problem spanning from broad cultural associations to specific issues popping up in the corners of the independent film landscape. With the dollar weak and alternative distribution venues on the rise, Cannes arrived like an intervention, bringing everyone under the same umbrella to figure out if they can come to terms with the problems at hand. So far, it looks like they're able, at the very least, to acknowledge them.

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"It's always a neck and neck race with red ink," quipped Woody Allen at the end of a Martinez lunch with a few journalists earlier this week here at the Cannes Film Festival. While discussing his acclaimed new film, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Allen pondered the challenges of finding the funding to make his own movies, while at separate fest events this week the Dardenne Brothers and filmmaker James Gray -- all Cannes favorites who frequently bring new work to the festival -- discussed similar challenges facing the personal, auteur cinema typically showcased here each year. [Eugene Hernandez]

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While attendees sat inside the Cannes Film Festival's Debussy theater on Wednesday watching the morning press screening of Fernando Meirelles' harrowing "Blindness," nearby on the Croisette dozens of costumed pandas danced with Jack Black to hype the animated festival entry, "Kung Fu Panda." Like the abandoned characters depicted in the horrific world of "Blindness," the French locals wearing the 100 lb. bear costumes yesterday had to be carefully escorted from the Carlton Beach pier because they were unable to see anything. Such was the scene during the first twenty-four hours of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, an event comprised of serious films for cinephiles and PR stunts aimed at movie industry insiders and thousands of attending journalists.

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Rainy skies and industry-wide gloom-and-doom hover over this year's Cannes, but the nearly 11,000 registrants attending this year's festival and Market can't all be depressed. With thousands of new films on offer, from auteur visions to star-driven genre pictures, and hundreds of distributors in need of product, the supply-and-demand business of Cannes must go on. Along the Cote d'Azur Tuesday, in fact, the dreary weather finally broke to reveal sunny skies.

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