Brad Pitt and Twilight stars join Cannes 2012 line-up

THE OFFICIAL 2012 Cannes Film Festival selection was announced this morning in Paris. Festival President Gilles Jacob and delegate Thierry Frémaux revealed the much-anticipated line-up for the event which runs from 16-27 May. From 1779 submissions, the committee chose 54 films, nominating US filmmaker Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom to open the 65th Cannes Festival.

It's the second year running that an American comedy has been chosen as an opener, following Woody Allen's crowd pleaser Midnight in Paris.

Moonrise Kingdom stars Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and Tilda Swinton, and follows a pair of runaway lovers through 1960s New England. Anderson's previous film, The Fantastic Mr Fox, won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. He co-wrote the Moonrise screenplay with Roman Coppola (son of The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola).

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Anderson's film leads a strong line-up of American movies showing this year, including David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis. An adaptation of Don DeLillo's 2003 novel of the same name, the film stars Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson as a 28 year-old billionaire fund manager and follows his adventure-filled journey in a limo on the way to get a haircut.

Promising US contenders include Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly starring Brad Pitt, as a professional enforcer investigating a heist at a mob poker game, and Paperboy, by Precious director Lee Daniels. Paperboy stars Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConaughey and John Cusack in a story of a reporter who goes back to his hometown in Florida to prove the innocence of a man on death row.

British hopes for a Cannes award lie once again with Ken Loach. His new film The Angel's Share is about a Scottish ex-offender who finds a way out of poverty and crime at a whisky distillery.

Also in competition will be Walter Salles's film of the Jack Kerouac beat classic, On the Road, with Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Stewart; Lawless, by the Australian director of The Road, John Hillcoat and co-written by Nick Cave; and Rust and Bone by the French director of The Prophet, Jacques Audiard, starring Marion Cotillard.

The prize for cinema veteran must go to 89-year-old French New Wave director of Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour, Alain Resnais. Resnais's film Vous N'Avez Encore Rien Vu (You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet), about a group of actors who have gathered in the house of a deceased playwright for the reading of his will, is also vying for a Cannes award.

Oscar-winning actor Nanni Moretti was named as the president of this year's Cannes jury.