CANNES, France -- Making a movie about a donkey,or to be more specific, from a donkey's point of view is an audacious project. But that's just what Jerzy (pronounced "Ya-shee") Skolimosky did and his film, a slow and oppressive rumination on humans and their relationship to the animal world was screened here on Thursday. A circus troupe. A grey donkey and his handler Kassandra. The animal seems happy, even though

An exotic locale in beautiful Portugal, an unaffected and powerful performance by a star actress and existential worriment. This is what you can expect from “Frankie,” an ensemble film directed by Ira Sachs that’s asthmatic and lacks energy but fascinated me, nevertheless, because of its main actress Isabelle Huppert and her incredible on-screen presence.Huppert is one of France’s biggest names.

“Elle,” last to be shown in competition, isn’t the best or the most accomplished film. It made sense to show it last in the festival for several reasons, however: the storied career of Paul Verhoeven, its director (at 77, Verhoeven is the oldest filmmaker among this year’s competition directors and has two major hits under his belt, “Basic Instinct,” 1992 and “Starship Troopers,” 1997), the cast, made up of A-plus-plus actors

Gallic cinema's three most visible actresses, Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert, will be present at Berlin next month, their latest films having been selected for the festival as announced by the festival’s organizers just before the weekend. Catherine Deneuve will be presenting “Elle S’en Va” (“She’s leaving,” in French) by Emmanuelle Bercot, Huppert appears in “La Religieuse” (The Nun) dir-

Inspired by the 2001 Dos Palmas kidnapping of foreign tourists and missionaries by the Islamic separatist group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Philipino director Brillante Mendoza, a Cannes Festival favorite (Kinatay, Serbis) Captive excruciatingly follows the twenty hostages as they are dragged at gunpoint from their hotel, spirited onto a fishing boat and led through various towns and jungles for over a year. Isabelle Huppert