Linda Cardellini plays a soldier who returns home from a tour of duty and has trouble adjusting in artist-turned-director Liza Johnson’s debut feature Return. John Slattery and Michael Shannon co-star. Return is the only U.S. movie selected to play in the prestigious Cannes sidebar Directors’ Fortnight, announced this morning in Paris. Johnson is one of several female directors injecting a dose of estrogen into this year’s 25-film lineup. Other women directors include Ireland’s Rebecca Daly, whose first film The Other Side of Sleep tells the story of a sleepwalker in a rural town searching for her mother’s killer; Polish filmmaker Urszula Antoniak (Code Blue); Canada’s Isabelle Lavigne and Stephane Thibault (At Night They Dance); and Morocco’s Leila Kilani (Sur La Planche). Directors’ Fortnight runs May 12-22. The lineup:

– Apres le sud (France) – Jean-Jacques Jauffret
– Blue Bird (Belgium) – Gust Van den Berghe
– Breathing (Austria) – Karl Markovics
– Code Blue (Netherlands/Denmark) – Urszula Antoniak
– Corpo celeste (Italy/Switzerland/France) – Alice Rohrwacher
– End of Silence (France-Austria) – Roland Edzard
– La Fée (Belgium/France) – Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy (opening film)
– Les Géants (Belgium-France-Luxembourg) – Bouli Lanners (closing film)
– Impardonnables (France) – Andre Techine
– The Island (Bulgaria-Sweden) – Kamen Kalev
– Iris in Bloom (France) – Valerie Mrejen
– Joan Captive (France) – Philippe Ramos
– Mushrooms (India/France) – Vimukthi Jayasundara
– O abismo prateado (Brazil) – Karim Ainouz
– The Other Side of Sleep (Ireland/Hungary/Netherlands) – Rebecca Daly
– Palawan Fate (Philippines) – Auraeus Solito
– Play (Sweden/France/Denmark) – Ruben Ostlund
– Porfirio (Colombia/Spain/Uruguay/Argentina/France) – Alejandro Landes
– Return (US) – Liza Johnson
– Sur la planche (Morocco/France/Germany) – Leila Kilani
– Volcano (Denmark/Iceland) – Runar Runarsson

Special Screenings

– At Night, They Dance (Canada) – Stephane Thibault, Isabelle Lavigne
– Des Jeunes gens modernes (France/Belgium) – Jerome de Missolz
– El Velador (Mexico/US/France) – Natalia Almada
– Guilty of Romance (Japan) – Sion Sono