Across the pond, I'm liking the sound of the new Michelle Williams' film - a take on Marilyn Monroe while on a 1957 set with Laurence Olivier to be played by Kenneth Branagh. Weinstein Co. is onboard My Week with Marilyn, which should begin shooting soon in the U.K. Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights still needs its Heathcliff and supporting cast. I imagine that long list is a short list by now, and that we should hear some casting news probably during TIFF with filming, at best, beginning at the very end of the month.

Last Train Home, the directorial debut of documentary filmmaker Lixin Fan, has had an impressive streak at the past year's major film festivals. An official selection of Sundance Film Festival, and winner at several festivals including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, and top tier docu festival IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam), this chronicles two years in the lives of the Zhengs, a working-class Chinese family who are separated for economic reasons.

Rodrigo García is looking to direct Glenn Close's Albert Nobbs project, Mark Pellington's low budget I Melt With You will get the greenlight soon and Mary Harron will film a horror film (The Moth Diaries) in Montreal.

July is a pretty big month for movie productions worth keeping tabs on - this month's IONCINEMA.com's "Tracking Shot" features a mix of indie and studio project, with helmer Chris Gorak (Right at Your Door) making the jump for low budget to huge budget with Summit Ent. distributing and Timur Bekmambetov producing an alien invasion project.

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com's "Tracking Shot" features about a half-dozen projects that are moments away from lensing and that we feel are worth signaling out. This June, we are keeping tabs on the newly announced docu-comedy project from Morgan Spurlock who'll be chasing nerd core of comic book fans at Comic-con this year. Jack and Diane seems to be going ahead this month with casting officially in place and announced during the Cannes film festival, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo will begin filming his latest thriller with two big name talents on board and only one 11 year-old girl left to cast.

Three titles that should receive a lot of attention in this year's fest are: Jorge Michel Grau's contempo cannibal film to break out We Are What We Are (see pic), and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson's Sound of Noise – a high risk film because it mixes genres together like someone grabbing whole bunch of leftovers from the fridge.

Infusing last year's Cannes with such unique films as Greece's Dogtooth, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno and the biking in the birthday suit comedy The Misfortunates, the all encompassing heavyweight French unit MK2 is on one of those odd winning streaks – managing to find/rep films that are celebrated at not only the major heavyweight film fests, but the “second tier” noteworthy fests as well – such as the Rotterdams and the Locarnos of this world we brought about Alamar (To the Sea) and Nothing Personal.

Among those they have tapped for the fest they have a premium Midnight Screening for Gilles Marchand's Black Heaven and they are closing the festival with Julie Bertuccelli's The Tree.

The French sales/production company is supplying this year's Cannes fest with a trio of titles, but you might find me doing cartwheels more for a project that hasn't even began lensing in Marjane Satrapi's Waiting for Azrael.

Compared with last year, Fortissmo Films come packing with only a single title, but that doesn't mean their sales agent won't be spending pretty much the entire festival from their rented office balcony. They signed a fairly ambitious deal with Fox - first time I've heard of a major studio outputting their titles to a films sales company of this nature and they've got one receiving a world preem at the festival in Sergei Loznitsa's My Joy.

Studio Canal Among the Cannes selected items, prestige outfitter Studio Canal has a pair of mention-worthy titles in the five plus hour offering from Oliver Assayas and perhaps this year's Battle of Algiers in Rachid Bouchareb's Outside the Law. Among the films they'll be selling in a non-completed stage are Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock (see pic of Sam Riley) and Joe Cornish's Attack the Block – both of these should be Venice and/or TIFF bound.

Last year the sales/production/distribution company hit a triple (in the prize category) with Dolan's I Killed My Mother, this year they move up a section into the UCR with Heartbeats (see pic above). Worth noting in the sales department is Antoine Blossier's debut horror film Prey (which I was hoping would find a spot in Cannes this year) and Julie Delpy is calling up her parents for a sequel to her rom com, 2 Days in Paris. with 2 Days in New York.

The German sales co. known for providing the fest circuit and art-house plexes with subtitled stuff from around the globe will set fire to the Director's Fortnight section this year. If I'm counting right, the Match Factory supply the section with a trio of titles (five total in the fest) including the much discussed on this site Cam Archer's sophomore feature, and they nabbed a Main Comp spot for one of the most celebrated directors of the decade in Apichatpong Weerasethakul latest – a sort of “ghost” story.

With three in the Director's Fortnight and one in the Main Comp for good measure, Films Distribution are making a significant contribution to Cannes this year – my money is on Katell Quillevere's Un Poison Violent (see pic above) but Wang Xiaoshuai, Jean-Stéphane Bron's doc on white collar crimes that hinder the working man and an immigrant tale gone wrong portrait from Olivier Masset-Depasse could make this a great year for the distributor. Something to look forward to in the near future: Yann Samuell's next effort.

There won't be any big costly parties in Cannes this year for the folks at Pathe – it seems to be a Berlin, skip Cannes and go to Venice type of year. The Illusionist preemed in Berlin and makes an appearance in the Market screenings, and the much anticipated Miral from Julian Schnabel skipped a non-comp, non-confidence vote and is instead poised to double dip in Venice and TIFF.

Kinology is heading to Cannes with a single title in Copacabana – the Isabelle Huppert starring with her daughter comedy is a focal point in the Critic's Week section this year. It's the projects that they've got on the sales slate that have got my ears perked up in an upright position – beginning with Juan Solanas' next - he is currently shooting Upside Down in Montreal, while Andrew Niccol is still in pre-production mod with The Cross.

This year the Coproduction Office come packing three titles – a pair in the Un Certain Regard section and a much anticipated Cannes supported, docu-essay Le Quattro Volte by Italian helmer Michelangelo Frammartino...and the last minute addition to the fest Tender Son - The Frankenstein Project which will probably see the director work on the film until the very last minute, hence the very late in the fest screening.

Funny Balloons - the French sales company (founded in 03) has created a small niche of repertoire films, and are the folks behind some of my breakout favorites such as Chile's Tony Manero and Mexico's Lake Tahoe (both Cannes products).

This May, we are keeping tabs on David Cronenberg's reunion with thesps from Eastern Promises which is set for an Europe shoot, we have Andrea Arnold taking over the Wuthering Heights project throwing out previously attached actors in favor of a mostly unknown Kaya Scodelario, and a yet to be determined male lead. Post-Precious, we have Lee Daniels working on what should be a much talked about film in next year's campaign.

Fans of the annual Blacklist will notice top tier items from 2008 in Oranges (#2) and Butter (#3) are going into production. Butter still has some casting work before setting up shop in Louisana. The state will also be the host to the next Duplass comedy entitled, Jeff Who Lives at Home.

On the world cinema front, we have a new film from Aki Kaurismäki (filming in the North of France), we have Lou Ye joining forces with Tahar Rahim, and another auteur in Phillippe Garrel who will be directing Monica Bellucci.

This February we are keeping tabs on So Yong Kim, Tom McCarthy and Dito Montiel who are all filming their third films which happen to all be set in the state of New York. Outside of the U.S, I'm with Cancer sets up shop in Vancouver, Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod will lense the adaptation of Guy De Maupassant's classic novel's Bel Ami which will film in Budapest, and finally Ana Katz will film Los Marziano in her native Argentina.

Our very first feature of 2010, is an item which we begin at the top of every month. January's Tracking Shot makes up for a lack of production in December - and at the top of the productions that are beginning this month we find George Clooney toplining Alexander Payne's The Descendants for Fox Searchlight. Casting is still underway with this project - and I guess we'll be hearing more from it in the next couple of weeks.

At the beginning of every month, IONCINEMA.com's "Tracking Shot" features a handful of projects that we feel are worth signaling out and that are moments away from lensing. We can expect a surge in film productions starts in January, but the month of December is short on film productions, yet we still have a trio of titles that are worth following.

The prolific documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's new film, will have a two-week engagement at Film Forum in NYC, and it is a stunning display of some of the best dancers and choreographers in the world training at one of the world's greatest ballet companies.