By Faizal Khan

Cannes, May 19 (UNI) As the 79th Cannes Film Festival crosses the half-way mark, a number of Asian directors have staked their claim to the event's top prize, the Palme d'Or.

At least five Asian filmmakers, including a previous recipient of the Palme d'Or, is in the race for the prestigious prize at the end of the first week of the festival, which opened on May 12.

Three Japanese directors, an Iranian filmmaker and a director from South Korea are representing Asian cinema in Cannes this year.

All the five Asian directors already have had the world premiere of their new feature films in the competition category of the festival, considered the high table of world cinema.

The Asian directors are led by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda, who won the Palme d'Or in 2018 for 'Shoplifters'. This year, Koreeda's new film, 'Sheep in the Box' is an Artificial Intelligence-laden production, which tells the story of a grieving couple who receives a complimentary humanoid boy following the death of their son in an accident.

Koreeda is joined by compatriots, Koji Fukada, whose 'Nagi Notes' is about an architect and artists in rural Japan struggling to leave their painful past behind; and 'All of a Sudden' directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the story of two women, one the head of a care home for the elderly, and the other a theatre director battling terminal cancer.

Celebrated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi is also part of the competition section this year, with his new film, 'Parallel Tales', about an author spying on her neighbours for inspiration for her new novel.

Legendary French actor Isabelle Huppert plays the lead role of the author in the film set in Paris. 'Parallel Tales' is Farhadi's second feature film set in France after his 2013 film, 'The Past', which also competed for the Palme d'Or in Cannes. Farhadi is a winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for 'The Separation' in 2011.

South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin's genre movie, 'Hope', tells the story of an attack on a village by a beast, testing limits of its disaster preparedness.

Last year, there were only four Asian filmmakers in the competition category--- Chinese director Bi Gan for 'Resurrection', Japanese director Chie Hayakawa for 'Renoir', and Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi for 'It Was Just an Accident' and Saeed Roustaee for 'Woman and Child'.

Panahi went on to win the Palme d'Or last year for 'It Was Just an Accident', which was also nominated for the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards this year.

Celebrated Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, acclaimed American filmmaker James Gray, Romanian director Christian Mungiu and Hungarian filmmaker László Nemes are also in the fray for the Palme d'Or this year.

Almodovar's new film 'Bitter Christmas', Gray's 'Paper Tiger' starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, Mungiu's 'Fjord' set in Norway, and 'Moulin' by Nemes about the arrest of French resistance leader Jean Moulin by the Gestapo during the Second World War, are strong contenders for the Cannes top prize.

Along with Koreeda, Mungiu is the only other filmmaker in the competition category this year to have won the Palme d'Or before. Mungiu's '4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days' won the Palme d'Or in 2007.

Nemes won the Oscar award for Best Foreign Language Film for his debut feature film, 'Son of Saul', the winner of the Grand Prix in Cannes in 2015.

Acclaimed South Korean director Park Chan-wook is the president of the jury for the competition category, which awards the Palme d'Or, this year.

Other members of the jury include American actor Demi Moore and Chinese director Chloé Zhao.

The Palme d'Or will be announced at the closing ceremony of the festival on May 23.

UNI XC RN