19 films compete at Cannes Film Festival

CANNES, France (AP) Three past winners of the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival - Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Abbas Kiarostami - are in the running for the same award again as 19 films compete at the world's premier cinema showcase.

Critics have been generally unimpressed with the line-up Cannes presented at the 12-day festival along the French Riviera, with a handful of films stirring some buzz but most of the entries premiering to lukewarm receptions.

awards ceremony

The festival ends Sunday night with the awards ceremony and a screening of the closing film, French director Julie Bertuccelli's The Tree, a family drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, who won the best-actress award at Cannes last year for Antichrist.

Kristin Scott Thomas, who presided over the festival's opening ceremonies, handles the same duties for awards night.

British director Leigh's ensemble drama Another Year, featuring Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton, received favourable reviews, particularly for co-star Lesley Manville as a lonely middle-aged woman desperate for companionship. Leigh's Secrets and Lies won the festival's top honour, the Palme d'Or, in 1996.

Fellow British director Loach, whose The Wind that Shakes the Barley won that prize at Cannes in 2006, competes again with his Iraq War thriller Route Irish." Iranian director Kiarostami, who earned the Palme d'Or in 1997 with Taste of Cherry, is entered this year with his cryptic love story Certified Copy, starring Juliette Binoche.