Hanks: Dream carpet

Paris, April 20 (Reuters): Hollywood stars Tom Hanks and Kirsten Dunst will share the famed Cannes red carpet next month with a series of lesser-known film makers, in what is set to be a festival at which politics play a major role.

“If 2005 was the year of the return of the grand authors, 2006 will be all the opposite,” artistic director Thierry Fremaux said today to present the line-up of the 59th festival. Director Sofia Coppola’s Marie-Antoinette won a place in the official competition’s 19 films. The movie features Kirsten Dunst as the Queen of France.

Although out of competition, director Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks, is set to make waves at Cannes when it opens the 2006 festival.