The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday announced its 2013 Official Selections, with Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic and Drive partnership Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding Refn’s second film Only God Forgives emerging as the frontrunners for the coveted Palme d’Or.

Other films in the running for the top-price include Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur.

The 66th annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to be run from May 15-26, with Oscar winning US director Steven Spielberg, whose latest film Lincoln has been nominated for a dozen awards at the Academy Awards ceremony recently, heading the panel of jury. Actress Tautou will host the event.

Soderbergh, who hit the jackpot in 1989 for his film Sex, Lies and Videotape, has made a stunning comeback in the competition with his hotly-anticipated movie Behind the Candelabra. The movie is starred by Michael Douglas, who will be seen as swashbuckling entertainer Liberace and veiling his homosexuality publically. His gay role in the movie, set to be aired on HBO later this month, is played by Matt Damon.

Directed by James Gray and starred by Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard. Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner,The Immigrant is also expected to take the center-stage. The story of film rotates around a young girl, who snared into the life of vaudeville and burlesque.

American auteur director Alexandra Payne will present his comedy movie Nebraska, about a son and father, rambling from the Montana to Nebraska to get some money.

Another movie nominated for Palme d’Or was The violent thriller but it was vanquished by Terence Malick’sThe Tree of Life. However, the movie helped director Refn to fall in best director category.

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi – who claimed Best Foreign-Language Oscar in last year for his Persian FilmA Separation, is also in the competition with his new film, The Past while contentious Japanese director Takashi Miike’s is also in contention with his crime-thriller Straw Shield.

The only British film featuring in the event is Stephen Frears’ Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight.

Last year Michael Haneke’s Amour had won Palme d’Or while Grand Prix had went to Matteo Garrone.

Films in the competition:

• Tian Zhu Ding directed by Zhangke Jia
• The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) directed by Paolo Sorrentino
  
• Like Father Like Son (Soshite Chichi Ni Naru) directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu
  
• Only God Forgives directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
  
• Borgman directed by Alex Van Warmerdam
  
• Behind the Candelabra directed by Steven Soderbergh
  
• Jimmy P (Un Indien des Plaines) directed by Arnaud Desplechin
  
• Inside Llewyn Davis directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
  
• Venus in Fur (La Venua a la Fourrure) directed by Roman Polanski
  
• Un Chateau en Italie directed by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
  
• Just 17 (Jeune & Jolie) directed by Francois Ozon
  
• Straw Shield (Wara No Tate) directed by Takashi Miike
  
• Michael Kohlhaas directed by Arnaud des Pallières
  
• The Past (Le Passé) directed by Asghar Farhadi
  
• Heli directed by Amat Escalante
  
• The Immigrant directed by James Gray
  
• Grisgris directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
  
• Nebraska directed by Alexander Payne
  
• La Vie D’Adele directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
  

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French actress Audrey Tautou, who starred in the hit film Amélie, will host this year’s Cannes Film Festival presenting both the opening and closing ceremonies.

The event takes places between 15th -26th May and the actress will follow on from Bérénice  Béjo who hosted the festival last year.

Audrey is known for her famous role in the film Amélie, in addition to major parts in The Da Vinci Code andCoco Before Chanel.

Proceedings will open at 7.15pm on 15th May and close at 7pm on 26th May.

Thierry Fremaux, the festival’s director, is keeping the list of festival contenders under wraps until 18th April. However, we do know that Baz Luhrmann’s film The Great Gatsby will feature as the opening movie bringing big names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan to the event’s red carpet.

Meanwhile New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion will be presented with the Carrosse d’Or from the Society of Film Directors at the festival. The director won the coveted Palme d’Or – or best film prize – for her movie The Piano back in 1993, and remains the only woman to have won the award.

Last year’s winner of the award was Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan – whose film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia was selected as Turkey’s official entry for the best foreign language film at the Oscars.

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