The line up for the 34th Deauville Festival of American Film includes the first directorial effort from American Beauty writer Alan Ball, Towelhead. Also on deck for the competition are David Gordon Green's Snow Angels and Tom McCarthy's critically acclaimed The Visitor. In total, the competition includes 11 films, five of which are first features. (See below for full list.)

French actress Carole Bouquet will preside over a prestigious jury with Edouard Baer, Ronit Elkabetz, Pierre Jolivet, Cedric Khan, Bouli Landers, Cristian Mungiu, Dean Tavoularis and Leonor Silvera making up the body of the panel.

In the documentary section seven films will compete including Nanette Burstein's American Teen and James Toback's Tyson.

The festival will kick off on Sept 5 with Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia! starring Meryl Streep, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan. Other big titles include Clint Eastwood's Cannes competitor Changeling; Ed Harris' Appaloosa with Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger; Peter Hedges' Steve Carrel vehicle Dan In Real Life - which also stars French actress Juliette Binoche - another Carrel film, Get Smart; Guillermo del Toro's critically-lauded Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Bill Plympton's animated Idiots And Angels; Neil LaBute's Lakeview Terrace with Samuel L. Jackson; Married Life from Ira Sachs with Brosnan, Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams; Jay Roach's Emmy-nominated HBO film Recount; Jonathan Levine's Sundance favorite The Wackness and Spike Lee's Miracle At St. Anna

Lee and Harris, along with Deauville darling Parker Posey and late director Mitchell Leisen will be the subject of tributes at the event.

The festival will continue the tradition it began last year with American Nights, a non-stop ten-day 24 hour screening of American classics with such films as 1947's Orson Welles version of Macbeth, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway, Sydney Pollack's Tootsie and Bob Fosse's All That Jazz.

The Michel d'Ornano prize for best first film has been awarded to Jean-Stephane Sauvaire's Johnny Mad Dog about child soldiers in Africa. The film is being released by TFM in France. The literary prize this year goes to Francois Forestier for Marilyn And JFK.

Closing the festival is Helen Hunt's directorial debut Then She Found Me also starring Firth.

Main Competition
*Afterschool, dir: Antonio Campos
*All God's Children Can Dance, dir: Robert Logevall
American Son, dir: Neil Abramson
*Ballast, dir: Lance Hammer
Gardens Of The Night, dir: Damian Harris
Momma's Man, dir: Azazel Jacobs
*Smart People, dir: Noam Murro
Snow Angels, dir: David Gordon Green
Sunshine Cleaning, dir: Christine Jeffs
*Towelhead, dir: Alan Ball
The Visitor, dir: Tom McCarthy

Uncle Sam's Docs
American Teen, dir: Nanette Burstein
American Swing, dir: Matty Kaufman & Jon Hart
Lake Of Fire, dir: Tony Kaye
Made In American, dir: Stacy Peralta
Standard Operating Procedure, dir: Errol Morris
Tyson, dir: James Toback
War Child, dir: Christian Karim Chrobog

Topics