Cannes film festival: Fair Game and other targets

It's Day 9 at the 63rd Cannes film festival and the Palme d'Or race finally saw an American contender today, with the premiere of Fair Game. Here's star Naomi Watts in her second Cannes press conference of the week – she also had to face the press for Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger last week
Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters

Fair Game is directed by Doug Liman, whose oeuvre includes Swingers, Go and the first Bourne film. Xan Brooks describes the film, which revolves around the unmasking of CIA agent Valerie Plame in the leadup to the Iraq war, as 'too by-the-book'
Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

In any case, for anyone who thinks that Naomi Watts is fanciful Hollywood casting as Ms Plame …
Photograph: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images

… here she is in person. Valerie Plame Wilson has also been in Cannes this week and, as Charlotte Higgins points out, 'is really rather glamorous, as well as being sharp as a knife'
Photograph: Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters

Sean Penn, who plays Plame's husband, off-message diplomat Joseph Wilson, is looking rather more serious. But then, he's not on the French Riviera enjoying ritzy Cannes …
Photograph: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features

… instead, Sean Penn chose to miss the Cannes premiere of Fair Game in order to join Mark Schneider, senior VP of the International Crisis Group (ICG), to testify before the US Congress on Haiti earthquake relief. The actor is co-founder, with philanthropist Diana Jenkins, of the J/P Haitian Relief Organisation
Photograph: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features

Back at Cannes, Adrien Brody looks a little lost at the Fair Game cocktail party …
Photograph: Olycom SPA/Rex Features

… but here's Emily Blunt to show him how it's done. All she needs is a yacht
Photograph: Olycom SPA/Rex Features

Elsewhere on the Croisette, Belarussia-born director Sergei Loznitsa (second from right) attended the premiere of his Palme d'Or contender, My Joy, with actors Viktor Nemets (left) and Olga Shuvalova (right)
Photograph: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images

The team behind South Korean Palme d'Or contender Poetry walked the red carpet for the film's premiere at Cannes: (from left) producer Lee Joon-dong, actors Lee David and Yun Jung-hee, and film-maker Lee Chang-dong. The film revolves around an elderly woman's struggle to cope with the discovery that she has Alzheimer's disease
Photograph: Christian Hartmann/AP

The young actors of Olivier Assayas's Carlos celebrate making it through the film's 330mins running time at the Cannes film festival photocall: (from left) Alexander Scheer, Nora von Waldstatten and Edgar Ramirez
Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

Another Palme d'Or runner meets the world's press: the Italian film Our Life (La Nostra Vita) is directed by Daniele Luchetti (centre) and stars Raoul Bova and Elio Germano
Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Our Life, ostensibly a comedy about a working-class Roman coming to terms with a tragic death, also stars (from left) Alina Berzenteanu, Stefana Montorsi and Isabella Ragonese
Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Luchetti's compatriot Marco Bellocchio – who directed Vincere, a Palme d'Or contender last year – shares his wisdom at a cinema masterclass in Cannes
Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Big-screen stars Michelle Rodriguez and Vincent Cassel go small-screen to attend the Canal+ TV show Le Grand Journal at the Cannes film festival
Photograph: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

Mick Jagger opens wide for a Cannes photocall for Stones in Exile, Stephen Kijak's documentary about the recording of the Rolling Stones's seminal Exile on Main Street album at Villa Nellcôte. The film is showing in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar
Photograph: Christian Alminana/Getty Images

Mick Jagger is joined by companion L'Wren Scott at a Directors' Fortnight event at the Cannes film festival
Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters

And the whirl of Cannes continues
Photograph: Karl Walter/Getty Images