Manoel de Oliveira's Belle Toujours is back on the charts this week, playing on one lone screen, in Denver, according to my information. Among its other qualities and achievements, it marks the fourth collaboration of director Oliveira and actor Michel Piccoli (a fifth, a short segment in an anthology film, appeared earlier this year). At 81, Piccoli is practically a living legend, having worked with Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Louis Malle, Mario Bava, and many other greats. He also appears in Jean-Pierre Melville's 1962 Le Doulos, currently re-released on 2 screens. It's a delicate relationship between director and actor; Piccoli and Oliveira seem to be developing a comfortable working relationship in which each brings out the best in the other. This has happened relatively few times over the past century. When it happens, it can be very exciting, but when a director and an actor don't click, everything can fall to pieces.

Milos Forman has coaxed and guided some great performances over the years, notably Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus and Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon. But he has rarely been praised for directing women, as evidenced by his awkward handling of Natalie Portman in the awful Goya's Ghosts (37 screens). The movie earned advance attention for its nude/sex scene, but will probably be remembered for fitting Portman with a set of humorously bad fake teeth and for her self-consciously dazed walk, newly released from prison, through a chaotic town square. Forman may be to blame, but Portman is out there, on the screen, all alone and in front of everyone.

If I said to you "Want to go to Jerusalem?" your first reaction probably wouldn't be: "What movies are playing there?" but that's the way my diseased mind works. So I did a little surfing and found the site for the Jerusalem Cinematheque. They show up to five different films every day, and the programs are fascinating. For example, on Monday, August 20, they're screening Because I Said So (Diane Keaton today), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Diane Keaton in the '70s), Odette Toulemonde (a recent comedy from France/Belgium) and Le Process de Jeanne D'Arc (Robert Bresson's 1962 version). Next Friday they're showing the latest Pirates of the Caribbean, two by David Fincher (Zodiac and Se7en) and the 1938 Pygmalion. Other titles this month include lesser-seen films by Samuel Fuller, Peter Bogdanovich and Clint Eastwood, plus a good selection from France and India.

As far as mainstream movies go, you can rest assured that Israelis are also subjected to the likes of Rush Hour 3, Bratz: The Movie and No Reservations. (They're even showing Evan Almighty.) But there are also Israeli titles like The Secrets ("two women discover their own voices in a repressive orthodox culture"), Beaufort (tense months for young soldiers just before Israel pulled out of Lebanon), Noodle (Mili Avatal (pictured) as a widowed flight attendant dealing with an abandoned Chinese boy), Stefan Braun (a very personal doc in which a man grieves for his lost love), News From Home (Amos Gitai's doc about memory and identity) and Jellyfish (an acclaimed drama about three women in Tel Aviv).

Beyond that generous assortment to choose from, a number of independent foreign films are playing. Some have already opened in the US (La Vie en Rose, The Boss of It All, The Golden Door, Private Fears in Public Places, After the Wedding, Sunflower ), while others have not (Irina Palm, Hunting and Gathering). Overall, I'd have to say that Jerusalem has an enviable variety of films playing.

Earlier this month, I posted about a secret film debuting at the Cannes Film Festival. All that was known at the time was that it would be a compilation of 30 shorts, each about three minutes long and directed by an internationally respected filmmaker, and that it wouldn't be shown to the public. Now, thanks to an official press release, we learn that there are in fact 33 shorts from 35 filmmakers (including two pairs of brothers) and that the film, titled To Each his Own Cinema, will air on French television on May 20 following its premiere at the festival. So now I don't have to wish I could attend Cannes; I have to wish I got Canal +.

Also revealed are the names of the 35 participants, all of whom were supposed to be kept secret until the film's unveiling, and a few details about the project. Each director was assigned the task of filming, "their current state of mind as inspired by the motion-picture theater." The only individual specifics mentioned in the press release, which was written by festival head Giles Jacob, are that Wim Wenders shot in the Congo, Tsai Ming Liang shot in Kuala Lumpur and David Cronenberg shot "in the ... toilet!" (probably meaning the bathroom, not the bowl). But anyone familiar with the directors involved can imagine the kind of diversity that will be seen in the film.

See the names of the 35 collaborators after the jump.

For its 60th year anniversary, the Cannes Film Festival will premiere new films from many past winners of the Palme d'Or. It isn't known how many of these winners will have new material this year, but apparently festival president Gilles Jacob and artistic director Thierry Frémaux tried to get many of the living "Golden Palm" vets -- winners and nominees, both -- to contribute to a special project.

Each participating filmmaker has directed a short film of 2-3 minutes in length that will be shown together as a feature-length film at a gala event on May 20. Variety reports that those known to be included are Ken Loach ('06: The Wind That Shakes the Barley), Gus Van Sant ('03: Elephant), Lars von Trier ('00: Dancer in the Dark), Theodoros Angelopoulos ('98: Eternity and a Day), Abbas Kiarostami ('97: Taste of Cherry), Chen Kaige ('93: Farewell My Concubine), Wim Wenders ('84: Paris, Texas) and non-winners (though often-nominated) Wong Kar-Wai, Michael Cimino, Amos Gitai, Manoel de Oliveira, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. There are 30 shorts in all, so obviously a lot of other contributors are as yet unknown. Only Pedro Almodóvar (also a non-winner, and never a nominee) is known to have declined the offer.