QUENTIN TARANTINO - TARANTINO UP FOR PALME D'OR

Quentin Tarantino has been nominated for the top Cannes film prize ahead of this year's festival, which begins on May 16th.

The cult director has been awarded a place on the shortlist for his film Death Proof, one half of the double feature Grindhouse.

Tarantino has picked up the Palme d'Or before after winning the award for Pulp Fiction in 1994.

Also nominated is Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights, starring Norah Jones, Jude Law, Tim Roth and Natalie Portman.

Fight Club and Seven director David Fincher also has a chance to collect the Palme d'Or after being nominated for his new film Zodiac.

Three films not involved in the competition, but still expected to attract a great deal of attention, are Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 13 and Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart.

A Mighty Heart stars Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, the journalist and wife of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan. The film is based on her book about her husband.

It seems that as well as Jolie, Ocean's 13 will be providing the Hollywood glamour to the Cannes red carpet, with Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Al Pacino all expected at the screening.

Oscar-winning documentary maker Michael Moore will also be showing his new documentary Sicko, which is about the US healthcare system.

Moore won the Palme d'Or in 2004 for his film Fahrenheit 9/11, which focused on the policies of the Bush White House in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks.