Since 1989, my mom, Evelyn has been my trusty sidekick, best friend and confidant to accompany me to Cannes every consecutive year since. I am sure many of you have seen this 4'10" Asian American mom whizzing down the Croisette to a screening or to meet me at a reception, with the sparkle of a teenager in love with the movies.

PHOTO: Evelyn, with her son Marcus Hu (front), and friends in Cannes last year. Photo by indieWIRE.

Her love for cinema rubbed off onto me as a child and stuck with me as a career. As she was readying for this year's 60th anniversary and packing for her trip, she had a severe stroke on May 1st. My spouse, Ross, found her at home and rushed her to the hospital.

My sister, Sandria, Ross and I have been by her side 24/7, at first it was touch and go, most of it a blur as any of you can imagine seeing a loved one in a dire state.

Flowers and well wishes from the film community around the world flooded her hospital room and have continued since her return home where she is recuperating and learning to walk and regain her strength.

Annually, James Schamus, Christine Vachon and Wouter Barendrecht planned dinners to celebrate her birthday, which always fell during the festival's dates.

On the first year that James made a dinner for her in the Good Machine suite, a fireworks display began, and it epitomized such a special evening for her that it become an indelible memory, and every year, even this year, James held his annual dinner for her and invited our family of friends to celebrate her recovery, leaving a seat open in her honor. Christine and I always held an annual dinner for her as well at one of her favorite restaurants, Le Petit Lardon.

My mom has become such a fixture at the festival, that many of the guards and officials wave at her with the carte blanche accorded to A list celebrities.

This year, my mom had been looking forward to showing the ropes of Cannes to my much older brother, Gregg Araki who presented his film, "Smiley Face" in Director's Fortnight.

My mom's favorite past time was saving seats in the Grand Lumiere for my partner Jon Gerrans, and dear friends such as Steven Raphael, John Cooper, Laura Kim, Dennis O' Connor, Carl Spence, Brian Robinson, MJ Peckos and all of our other film festival family and making sure that we got to spend time with them.

Even the staff of the Hotel Splendid sent their kind wishes to her on hearing of her illness and have already reserved her room for next year's festival.

Evelyn really appreciates all the kindness and goodwill that everyone has been extending to her and looks forward to having that kir royale toast to you all next year at the festival! [Marcus Hu]

Marcus Hu is the co-president of Strand Releasing

Ken Loach, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 59th Festival de Cannes. For more photos from indieWIRE's coverage of Cannes, visit the special iPOP section.

Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

Tommy Lee Jones explores often the brutal life along the U.S.-Mexican border, playing a Texas ranch foreman in a powerful film he also directs that made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday. "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" deftly slips back and forth between English and Spanish dialogue with a refreshing portrayal of frontier realities in both countries. "There is a lot of misunderstanding and prejudice on both sides of the border," said Jones, a Hollywood stalwart who doubled as director for the first time on a major cinema film. Reuters reports.

At the Carlton Beach this afternoon, Sam Shepard and Wim Wenders (pictured left to right in the center), talk with reporters about their Cannes competition film "Don't Come Knocking," during a Sony Pictures Classics lunch.
[Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE]

Worth reading for nice Festival de Cannes tidbits and perspective (not to mention some nice pix) is Jeffrey Wells' "Hollywood Elsewhere." The writer is everywhere, posting often, usually from the same table that indieWIRE's Brian Brooks has staked out in the busy American Pavilion:

I hate writing a daily column, but I love nailing it and doing it well when my energy's up and the synapses are firing away like the spark plugs inside the humming engine of Jimmy Stewart's The Spirit of St.Louis over the icy north Atlantic at 5 ayem. People seemed to be getting irritable yesterday, which I attribute to the fact that people always get irritable after going 18 hour days for seven says straight.

In Cannes, shortly before yesterday's "Sin City" press conference, Robert Rodriguez walks through the Palais to meet the press.
[Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE]

This is William Hurt's first visit to Cannes in 20 years. He last flew here in 1985, promoting his Oscar-winning performance in Hector Babenco's Kiss of the Spider Woman. He was a conquering hero: a movie star with a glittering career ahead of him. This time, he comes trailing baggage, and the reception has been more circumspect. Xan Brooks talks to Hurt in The Guardian.

Filmmaker Miranda July, at Cannes with her excellent feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, blogs about making the rounds at Cannes doing interviews, getting not so free clothes, and buying shoes.

Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, at Cannes with their latest film, "The Child," discuss their formative years and collaborative process of co-directing and co-writing together. Manohla Dargis reports for the New York Times.

19 producers from 19 European countries are participating in the EFP's "Producers on the Move" program here at the Cannes film Festival, highlighting new producers that already have one successful project under their built (the complete list of participants is below.
[Image provided by European Film Promotion]

"Last Days" star Michael Pitt, director Gus Van Sant and Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, who also stars in the film, pictured just prior to the press conference in the Palais de Festival today (Friday) in Cannes. Press shy Van Sant said Malcolm McDowell once told him, "thousands of pictures are taken of you, but you never know where they go." Here is one of them (more to come).
[Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE]

[Cannes Dispatch by Eugene Hernandez, Photo by Brian Brooks]

His age showing a bit, Woody Allen may be quite hard of hearing these days but he still knows how to make the international press corps laugh. And judging from his new film, "Match Point," he still has a cinematic flair. The new movie, still without U.S. distribution just yet after having been financed and shot in the U.K., is the story of a sexy schemer in London's upper crust society, played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, at the center of a love triangle between Scarlet Johansson and Emily Mortimer. Allen and cast talked with the press after the world premiere today here in Cannes.

"Match Point" opens with a tennis instructor, played by Rhys Meyers, talking about luck. With a tennis ball suspended in mid-air above a net, the instructor notes that one's fate can be greatly affected by luck, by which side of the net on which the ball falls.

There will be no red carpet for Adam Curtis when his film "The Power of Nightmares" receives its gala screening at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. There would be no point: his film has no leading ladies who could disport themselves in backless numbers or lantern-jawed himbos to vogue fatuously before the snappers. Unless, of course, two of his chief protagonists, Osama bin Laden and Paul Wolfowitz, could be prevailed upon to pose together for the world's press on the Grand Palais steps. Stuart Jeffries speaks to Curtis in The Guardian

Charlotte Rampling, the formidably poised actor who stars in this year's Cannes film festival opening movie, yesterday called Hollywood's attitude to women of a certain age "barbaric". Charlotte Higgins reports in The Guardian.

Ben Crowe, a 27-year-old ex-GNER employee, with no formal film training is heading to the Cannes festival after his £400 short was selected for competition. His film, "The Man Who Met Himself", is about a private eye investigating a suicide. It is one of nine films selected for the short-film Palme d'Or and the only British feature in the category. The Guardian Unlimited reports.

It's Europe's biggest film festival and draws the attention of the entire world. But what's it really like at Cannes? We talk to seven Brits very much on the inside of the French Riviera's most glamorous event. Jason Solomons, Vanessa Thorpe, Peter Stanford adn Liz Hoggard report in The Guardian.

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas will be honoured at the Cannes film festival, where he will receive the prestigious Festival Trophy. The latest "Star Wars" movie, "Revenge of the Sith," will receive its world premiere at the festival on 15 May. Lucas will be given the award in honour of his career at a ceremony onboard luxury cruise liner Queen Mary II during the 11-day festival. BBC reports.

Actress Nandita Das will travel next month to France to sit on the Cannes Film Festival jury, the second Indian star to serve since former Miss World Aishwarya Rai in 2003, a family member said. Das, who is currently in New York, will be the second actress from outside France to be a jury member at Cannes this year along with Hollywood sex symbol Salma Hayek. Agence France Presse reports.