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A Sundance favorite, a follow-up to a budget-less art house hit, and an anticipated Israeli film are a few of the highlights from the announced lineup for the 2011 Critic's Week (aka Semaine de la Critique), the oldest sidebar in Cannes. The selection only admits films which are either debut or sophomore efforts, so we'll be going in knowing scant details on what to expect, and likely coming out with some new major voices to follow.

Let me toot my own horn a bit. Of the 16 selected films out of 1,102 submissions, I accurately predicted 12. Out of the four that didn't fly on my radar we find American New Wave 25 selected Sean Durkin, who will make it back to back years in Park City. He featured the marvelous, creepy Mary Last Seen there, and would start lensing Martha Marcy May Marlene in the summer...but my thinking was he was Cannes-bound with this one...he may still be, but Sundance is world preem launching pad for the pic.

The Spotlight section (replacing the awkward Spectrum sidebar) is a place where the festival will showcase some great finds on the festival circuit. And let me tell you, there is some great stuff here especially with TIFF/Venice titles such as I am Love, Lourdes, Mother & Child, A Prophet and Women Without Men.

Apart from the world premiere of Michael Cuesta's Tell-Tale and one more festival screening and chance to shine for Hirokazu Kore-eda's Still Walking, the selections are comprised of unknown projects, New York-based film productions that were completed in the last year, a bunch of films that receive a May theatrical release anyways and a batch of better than average films that were showcased at Sundance.