Studios such as Miramax, Lions Gate and IFC films, which have brought hundreds of representatives to the French resort, shunned every film in the festival that they saw in the first week.

In previous years studios have picked up as much as half their total slate of films for the year at Cannes and as recently as 1997 Miramax picked up ten films. Even last year there were some notable successes, including Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, which went on to win three Academy Awards and Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine which also won an Oscar.

The fear is that Cannes’s clout has been eclipsed by other festivals, such as Sundance, Berlin and Toronto.

The first film to be bought by a Hollywood studio for distribution in the United States was Japanese Story, which has been sold to Samuel Goldwin Films. The picture, which premiered on Monday, is a love story about an Australian geologist and a Japanese businessman, starring Gotaro Tsunashima.

Lars von Trier’s Dogville, starring Nicole Kidman, is also expected to sell soon, as is Young Adam, which has Ewan McGregor in the lead role.

Tom Bernard, the president of Sony Pictures Classics, said: “There’s nothing really hot that’s in the festival. At least there is nothing obvious out there, although something may come out of left field and turn into a big bidding war.”

Even films that were expected to do well early on have met with a flat response from buyers. Particular disappointments have included Fanfan la Tulipe, starring Penelope Cruz, which opened the festival, the Chinese film Purple Butterfly, and The Night We Called It a Day from Dennis Hopper and Melanie Griffith.

The Brown Bunny, a Vincent Gallo film, has become the worst-rated film ever in the Cannes competition, according to Screen International’s panel of critics. One reviewer suggested that the film was a wind-up at the expense of the Cannes selectors, just so they could put a “high-profile, prickly American maverick in competition” to annoy US visitors.

Further pressure on buyers in Cannes has come from the rise in the number of cinemas showing independent films, meaning that even the best distributors cannot buy a film solely because of its artistic merit. Agnes Mentre, Miramax’s head film buyer, said: “We used to buy some movies based just on the prestige of the director. We now have to be more selective.

“Cannes’s focus is more and more as an auteur-driven festival, which is not always connected to what the public in America is looking for.”

However, there is one part of the festival that is doing good business. The results of negotiations on a number of Bollywood films, including Pride and Prejudice: The Bollywood Musical and The Rising, with the superstar Aishwarya Rai, are expected soon.

Sweet deal

The film director Tim Burton is to make a new adaptation of the Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s company, Plan B, will produce.

The Edward Scissorhands director is to meet Dahl’s family to confirm the deal, according to Variety. Dahl was unhappy with the 1971 adaptation, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

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