Penn all made-up with Cannes Festival

OSCAR-WINNER Sean Penn has donned red lipstick, heavy black eye make-up and a wig to play an ageing Goth rocker in his new movie.

The star plays 50-year-old retired rocker Cheyenne in This Must Be The Place, which will be screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film follows his character as he leaves his adopted home city of Dublin to return to New York when his father dies.

The discovery of a family secret leads him to take up his father’s quest for revenge on a Nazi war criminal who terrorised him in a concentration camp.

Among Penn’s co-stars is Eve Hewson, the daughter of U2 frontman Bono, who is said to play a rock fan.

Organisers of the Cannes Festival released its official lineup of films for this year’s cinema extravaganza, which gets under way on the French Riviera on May 11.

As usual, the flicks chosen for competition and exhibition promise a staggering parade of major movie stars — including Brad Pitt (starring in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life), Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz (Pirates of the Caribbean), Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Antonio Banderas (The Skin I Live In).

Perhaps the most talked-about potential star appearances include Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France and former supermodel, who stars in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris — plus Mel Gibson, whose The Beaver (directed by and starring his pal Jodie Foster) was a surprise inclusion in this year’s fest.

There are 19 movies vying for the top prize at this year’s festival.

The lineup announced for the 64th edition of the festival is exceptionally strong, with much-anticipated new films by the creme de la creme of auteur filmmakers — contending for the coveted Palme d’Or.

Festival managing director Thierry Fremaux said he expected this year to be “quite a rich and fruitful edition” of the famed festival. Submissions for the festival, which fell last year to 1,665 films, were back up to 1,715 this year, he added.

It is understood Malick’s The Tree of Life was initially meant to premiere at last year’s edition of the festival but wasn’t finished in time. The latest film by the acclaimed The Thin Red Line director is billed as a story of the loss of innocence, and also stars Sean Penn.

Jodie Foster’s The Beaver is to be screened out of competition, as will the latest installment in the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean series, and Rob Marshall’s On Stranger Tides.

The festival’s opening film, Midnight in Paris, is also showing out of competition. The latest Woody Allen movie includes French first lady and former supermodel Carla Bruni in a bit part. Hopes are high that she and her husband, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, will turn out for the inaugural screening to add an extra dollop of glamour to the high-wattage festivities.

American actor Robert De Niro presides the jury for this year’s main competition, with other jury members to be announced shortly, organisers said.