Documentary on Antarctica to close Cannes Film Festival on May 24

A documentary will close the 68th edition of the Cannes Film Festival on May 24. Luc Jacquet (who helmed the Oscar-winning March of the Penguins) will present his Ice and the Sky at the Grand Theatre Lumiere in what is probably the first time ever that a documentary will do these honours.

Ice and the Sky talks about the scientific discoveries of Claude Lorius, who first went to the Antarctica in 1957 to study the region. In 1965, he was the first to warn about global warming and its effects on the planet. But he has never lost hope.

Today, though aged 82, he continues to dream. "I believe that men will be still up. Men will find the solidarity that will lead the people living on this planet to another type of behaviour", he says.

"Cannes is a huge opportunity for this movie", avers Luc Jacquet. "I am pleased and impressed. Showing this film in the world's largest movie festival will contribute to this huge challenge facing humanity and the future of the planet. My language is cinema. In different times, I would have made other films. But I make fierce cinema, political cinema, cinema that has no choice."

In another first, the festival will open on May 13 with the work of a woman director, Emmanuelle Bercot's La Tete Haute (Standing Tall/Heads Up). La Tete Haute talks about a juvenile delinquent, Malony, and the efforts of a social worker to try and reform the boy as he travels into adulthood. Rod Paradot will play Malony, along with such celebrated actors as Catherine Deneuve, Benoit Magimel and Sara Forestier.

In yet another first, the festival's main competition jury will be headed by two men -- brothers Joel and Ethan Coen.