I think the Best Supporting categories are the toughest nuts to crack, often a fine performance counts as a rare sympathy vote for a film that isn't nominated in any other category. This year's real wild card are the actresses involved in Woody Allen's latest which employs a trio of supporting ladies in Freida Pinto, Anna Friel and Lucy Punch - but at this point its anyone's guess on how pivotal they become to the assigned male characters.

That's right folks. The gold dust for the 2010 Oscar winner list has barely settled, and I'm already attempting to figure out the 2011 Oscar nominations might look like. Why? It's more of a curiosity factor than anything else, seeing what's out there, what we can look forward to - so for the next nine days, I'll unveil my predictions in nine categories, beginning with the category for Best Cinematography.

The Berlin Film Festival which took place early last month had a pair of in competition for the Golden Bear entries in Der Rauber (The Robber) and Jud Suss - Film ohne Gewissen (Film without Conscience). Neither films won, but there was some controversy surrounding Jud Suss - Film ohne Gewissen which is Oskar Roehler's latest venture.

Principal photography has just been completed on Jim Loach’s debut feature Oranges and Sunshine starring Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham. The film follows the story of a social worker from Nottingham who uncovers a scandal involving the organised deportation of children in care from the UK to Australia.

Based on Law's childhood experience, the story intends to bring out the nostalgia of the Hong Kongers through the portrayal of those good old days. It has yet to premiere in Hong Kong, but is set for a March 11th release and it'll also will be able to be seen during the Hong Kong International Festival.

I spent all of last week divulging some of films that I expect to be in Cannes this year, and Screen Daily happened to do the same. There are a good number of films that are mentioned of both sites' lists, but I mention about twenty films that the trade makes no mention of, and of course they have got a long list as well of films that I either passed on as potential selections or I was totally oblivious as to their existence.

Back in January, I published a comprehensive Top 100 Most Anticipated Films list for the upcoming year, I thought I'd wrap it up stats with a checklist below.

Screen Daily made up their own Tips list with some surprise titles that I don't think will make it to Cannes (although I badly want to see Abdellatif Kechiche's Black Venus, I think he might return to Venice), and some titles that have a good shot which I did not mention (John Cameron Mitchell's Rabbit Hole) and plenty of their list mimics my picks - such as Julie Bertucelli's The Tree.

What do Juan Antonio Bayona, Bernardo Bertolucci, Guillermo del Toro, Ken Loach, Jacques Audiard, François Ozon and Wong Kar-Wai have in common? They all got their starts at the far-end of the Croisette in the smallest of the sections called Critic's Week. The section specializes in mostly first time, and sometimes sophomore films from new talent.

In many ways, Cannes' parallel sidebars (Director's Fortnight, Critic's Week and I'm including Un Certain Regard here) are the hardest sections to forecast - the high volume of films from all corner of the globe and the actual number of available slots makes it perhaps more difficult to predict than the actual Main Competition predictions..

It's always fun to guess how the jury might end up voting and whether the head of juror will indeed sway the final vote. Last year The White Ribbon won and the wave of reactions obviously pointed to Huppert and Haneke's well-known rapport. The previous year, Sean Penn gave the Palme d'Or to The Class, not a politically-themed picture, but a social drama that represents a common pandemic. This year we have Tim Burton as the master of ceremonies -- knowing him he has a taste for noir and fantasy.

First time filmmakers rarely get the chance to showcase a first film in the main comp - its the sidebars that handle plenty of first works and I think it'll be the same this year, but even Un Certain Regard section can be stingy on first time efforts (last year only a pair of films made it in that sidebar). Below we have a handful of filmmakers who have previously directed films but have never showcased the most prestigious film fest...example Golden Lion winning Peter Mullan

I don't normally associate remakes, trilogies, biopics or adaptions with films from the Croisette, but this year we could receive a little bit of all four if Aleksandr Sokurov's Faust, Kornel Mundruczo's The Frankenstein Project, Wong Kar-Wai's The Grand Master and Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid make the cut. Here are the second batch of predictions.

I'll first begin with the titles that should be part of the Main Competition, Out of Competition and Special Screenings, and commencing Friday, I'll detail the harder to predict titles that we could find in the Un Certain Regard, Quinzaine (Director's Fortnight) and Critic's Week sections.

Mr. Bjarnfredarson, the darkly comic culmination of Iceland's most popular TV series, The Night Shift, The Day Shift and The Prison Shift opened on December 26th and became the biggest opening ever for a local film. It has so far sold over 60.000 tickets. After holding behemoth Avatar at bay for two weeks (probably the only film in the world to do so), it's still going strong and has the potential to pass the current box office champion, Baltasar Kormakur's Jar City (84.000+).

Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of filmmakers? As part of our monthly IONCINEPHILE profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of all time favorite films. This month we profiled Zeina Durra who saw her debut feature The Imperialists are still Alive! receive its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. She gave us her top ten as of January 2010.

Responsible for putting Farmiga on the map, Granik's ode to Missouri's backwood might just do the same for Jennifer Lawrence - I've identified the actress as someone to watch out for after seeing her in her breakout role from Guillermo Arriaga's The Burning Plain.

Today must have been a fairly special day for David Michod -- the filmmaker saw two of his works receive their world preem debuts. First Hesher was shown midday (he receives a co-screenwriter cred) and he directed my most anticipated film in Animal Kingdom - a crime drama that only confirms what I discovered with in his shorts films: we've got a major talent on our hands from Down Under.

I've yet to know if this is two films (what's the deal with the IMAX rumor?)...which would only be an added bonus, but from what I do know, this is an ambitious, all encompassing project with major talents working side by side Malick in Alexandre Desplat (score) and Emmanuel Lubezki (cinematography).

Working with probably his largest budget to date, Kechiche touches upon the immigrant narrative once again, but inside the context of a biographical, historical approach - Baartman is perhaps this year's most unusual choice for a biopic treatment.

The notion of an untold Jacques Tati story finally being revealed is enough to put this high up on the list, but then factor in the amazing work in Triplets of Belleville -- easily among the decades' best films up there with the Pixar work and Hayao Miyazaki 2d brilliance. I wouldn't be surprised if Chomet's stylishly told, highly inventive brand pushes The Illusionist to the top of the animated field next year.

We commenced the 00 decade with In the Mood for Love and ended with the Blueberry blemish - an uncharacteristic low point in an otherwise bullet proof filmography. Now the big question and curiosity is what kind of aesthetic and tonal treatment is planning for a film with two WKW firsts: biographical and martial art elements.

Puiu's examination of a broken system in Un Certain Regard Award winning The Death of Mr. Lazarescu wasn't economical in design (running over the 150 minute mark) but I'm hoping that Puiu can offer both a sturdy character study and make a social commentary as he did with the fascinating treatment of a man's final hours. Puiu will appear in front of the camera this time.

You've got to hand it to them, if you reference No Country for Old Men, they sure know how to work in cowboy country, but this may be closer to Fargo than NCFOM in tone. The Coens know a thing or two about revenge-plots tied in with dark humor - plus they've got the Dude, Jeff Bridges lined up. Sweet package.

When the project was announced, I started thinking of the Far From Heaven melodrama type, and when Kate Winslet's name is tossed around I think of her in Revolutionary Road. Other than Pedro, there is no better director out there directing women.