2011 Cannes Croisette Colored in Dunaway, Kar-wai, Bertolucci, Inarritu, Schroeder and Audiard

Before making his Palme d’Or winner Scarecrow, Jerry Schatzberg made his debut Puzzle of a Downfall Child with ‘it’ girl Faye Dunaway. The film has somewhat disappeared for all but Dunaway completists, but that will change this year, beginning with the release of the poster for the 64th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival. Schatzberg was first well known as a photographer before diving in to filmmaking (many have seen his cover of Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde album), and, naturally, he took an exquisite set of shots of Dunaway around the production of the film. These exquisite shots, in turn, have made for an exquisite poster.

It brings back the festival’s penchant for dark, mysterious images, like those seen in 2006 (In the Mood For Love still) and 2008 (David Lynch photograph), a style that easily bests last year‘s image of Juliette Binoche shielding her eyes from the brightness. The poster marks the occasion of a new restoration of Puzzle of a Downfall Child, which will screen at this year’s edition. This is the last of this year’s ‘Croisette posters’ to be unveiled. Look for the others after the jump.

Recently, The Critic’s Week announced that one poster would not be enough to communicate the kind of 50th anniversary celebration they have in the works. They unveiled five posters, reminding the world that they introduced us, for better or worse, to the likes of Wong Kar-wai, Bernardo Bertolucci, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Barbet Schroeder, and Jacques Audiard. There are sure to be plenty of special guests and screenings this year, and we’ll likely find out most of them when the Critic’s Week line-up is let out of the bag on April 18. The official website will unveil some special videos we imagine sometime during or prior to the fest.

The Directors’ Fortnight has no round numbered anniversary to celebrate this year, and so they’ve taken a simple, playful approach to their poster. The design, which is actually quite similar to what Sundance put together this year, shows clip-art symbols of past films which played the sidebar. Some references are easier to see than others (so far we’ve caught Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, The Host, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and last year’s Little Baby Jesus of Flandr), and I doubt I’ll be able to stop looking at it until I’ve figured them all out. The announcement date for the Fortnight hasn’t been made public, but it will likely be after the Main Comp and Un Certain Regard announcements and prior to or on the same day as the Critic’s Week’s, as was the case last year.