Kidman, Clint Flicks Do Cannes

The red carpet won't stop rolling for Nicole Kidman.

One month after claiming the Oscar for The Hours, Kidman is back in the award-show game with Lars von Trier's Dogville, announced Wednesday as an official selection of the 56th Cannes Film Festival.

Kidman is among the Hollywood stars expected to jet to the French Riviera for the world's glitziest film festival and tanning session, scheduled for May 14-25.

Also making his reservation: Clint Eastwood, whose new crime drama, Mystic River, will compete against Dogville and 18 other films for the Palme d'Or, Cannes' equivalent of Best Picture.

Other titles up for the big prize: Elephant, a low-budget, unscripted drama from Gus Van Sant; The Brown Bunny, Buffalo '66 actor-writer-director Vincent Gallo's meditation on a motorcycle racer; and The Tulse Luper Suitcase (also known as The Moab Story/The Tulse Luper Suitcase--Part I), the latest from Welsh filmmaker Peter Greenaway, featuring an eclectic cast, including Kathy Bates, Madonna and the aforementioned Vincent Gallo.

Dogville, Von Trier's follow-up to 2000 Palme winner, Dancer in the Dark, a tale of life in the Rocky Mountains in the 1930s, also doesn't skimp on the names--everyone from Kidman to Lauren Bacall to Saturday Night Live alum Siobhan Fallon (a Von Trier holdover from Dancer) signed up for the artsy drama.

Eastwood's Mystic River stars Sean Penn, who also is expected to attend the fest.

Last year's Palme pick, The Pianist, went on to win three Oscars, including Best Director for Roman Polanski.

The new slate of Palme contenders represents 13 countries. Host country France placed five.

Organizers dismissed any notion that Hollywoodistas would boycott Cannes on account of France boycotting the Iraq war. Festival president Gilles Jacob told the Associated Press "relations between the two [countries'] cinemas isn't affected."

Other A-listers expected to attend include Keanu Reeves and the cast of The Matrix Reloaded, making its world premiere in an out-of-competition screening on May 15, Meg Ryan and Steven Soderbergh. Ryan and Soderbergh both will sit on the jury that'll pass verdict on the Palme.

Films touted as possible Cannes contenders that didn't materialize included Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill and the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty. Both reportedly were in a race against the clock, with the clock apparently winning.

The festival is scheduled to close out with a screening of a remastered Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's 1936 masterpiece.

Here's a complete look at the official competition selections of the 56th Cannes Film Festival:

A Cinq Heures de l'Apres-midi (director: Samira Makhmalbaf) Bright Future (director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa) The Brown Bunny (director: Vincent Gallo) Carandiru (director: Hector Babenco) Ce jour-la (director: Raoul Ruiz) Dogville (director: Lars von Trier) Elephant (director: Gus van Sant) Il Cuore Altrove (director: Pupi Avati) La Petite Lili (director: Claude Miller) Les Cotelettes (director: Bertrand Blier) Les Egares (director: Andre Techine) Les Invasions Barbares (director: Denys Arcand) Mystic River (director: Clint Eastwood) Pere et Fils (director: Alexandre Sokourov) Purple Butterfly (director: Ye Lu) Shara (director: Naomi Kawase) Swimming Pool (director: François Ozon) Tiresia (director: Bertrand Bonello) The Tulse Luper Suitcase (director: Peter Greenaway) Uzak (director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan)