Italian culture minister, Sandro Bondi, announced over this past
weekend that he refuses to attend the Cannes film festival this year
because the program included DRAQUILA: ITALY TREMBLES, a documentary on
the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila. Bondi claims that the documentary is
"propaganda" and "insults the truth and the entire Italian population" (more).

Meanwhile,
a group of leading directors at Cannes have signed (yet another)
petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who is still under
house arrest in Switzerland. Among those who signed the petition are
Jean-Luc Godard, Mathieu Amalric, and the winner of Cannes' "Best
Director" Award, Bertrand Tavernier. Then again, France's position is
on the matter was established a pretty long time ago, was it not? (more).

Paraguay
and Argentina have stated that they "will not cooperate" with Katherine
Bigelow should she decide to implement her latest project, a film about
organized crime in the "triple border" region where Argentina, Paraguay
and Brazil meet. The region is a center for smuggling and alleged
fundraising for Islamic militant groups, BBC news explained. "We were
indignant when we discovered that this project seeks to portray a
region shared by three South American countries in a negative light,"
said the Argentine tourism secretary, Enrique Meyer (more).