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Only a couple of days left before the main prizes are awarded, tents are taken down and the movie circus leaves town.   The future beyond the Palais all of a sudden becomes urgent.

Any self respecting A-list festival needs a film that rocks the boat and ruffles some feathers. Controversy can be like fuel to a Cannes festival, sparking debates that bubble late into the post-screening dinner conversations at the sidewalk cafés.

And then suddenly all the films, all the directors and all the discussions were somehow put aside. Because of a dress.

With Paterson, Jim Jarmusch, the quintessentially indie director--one of the few left in the U. S.

The sun is out for good and Cannes shines in all its glory. The Marché is winding down; the most recent echoes from the cavernous subterraneans of the Palais (which houses the Market) has Croisette enfant terrible Lars Von Trier pitching a serial killer thriller, The House That Jack Built - and closing pre-sales deals with Latin America, Benelux, Poland and Taiwan.

Writer-director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special) showed his fifth feature at this 69th Cannes and Loving immediately garnered plenty of buzz, with some unequivocally declaring it one of the festival's best. Loving is a quietly understated telling of one of the lesser known and yet crucial episodes in the American struggle for civil rights: the landmark (and never more  appropriately titled) case of Loving v.

The sun is shining on Cannes despite predictions of a soggy first week. While much work is being done, when the stars emerge to promote their movies sophisticatedly crafted bling catches the spotlights.

A visually and musically thrilling picture, American Honey, British director Andrea Arnold's fourth film, is also the first one that is set and shot entirely in America. The US rights to this picture, which premiered at Cannes Festival (in competition) were acquired during the festival by Focus Features.

The pace has picked up - this is the home stretch towards the coveted Palme D'Or and all the other awards. Equally, if not more important, is nabbing a distributor for your film, to ensure that the work will live on beyond the confines of the Croisette.

We are all familiar with the statistics: 8% of first time directors are women. 5% of films made are by women.