Our very own Brillante Mendoza did it again! His indie film "Kinatay" made it as one of the 20 contenders for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival in France.

Last year, Mendoza made the country proud because his film “Serbis” (Service) was selected as one of the finalists competing for the prestigious Palme d’Or. The first and only time a Filipino director had a film including in the competition category of the Cannes Filmfest was in 1984, when Lino Brocka’s opus “Orapronobis” was accepted.

This year, another movie by Brillante Mendoza made it to Cannes to compete with the world’s best filmmakers including Johnnie To (Election), Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), Jane Campion (The Piano), Pedro Almodova (All About My Mother) and Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon).

The 62nd Cannes Film Festival will run from May 13 to 24, 2009. The winner of the highly coveted Palme d’Or, which is a prelude to the Oscars, will be announced on the 24th.

Aside from Kinatay, two other Filipino films were selected for special screening in the non-competition category. These are “Independecia” by Raya Martin and “Manila” by Adolfo Alix, Jr. and Raya Martin with none other than Piolo Pascual as producer.

Here is the complete list of this year’s finalists:

“Los Abrazos Rotos” (Broken Embraces) by Pedro Almodovar (Spain)

“Fish Tank” by Andrea Arnold (Britain)

“Un Prophete” (A Prophet) by Jacques Audiard (France)

“Vincere” (To Conquer) by Marco Bellocchio (Italy)

“Bright Star” by Jane Campion (New Zealand)

“Map of the Sounds of Tokyo” by Isabel Coixet (Spain)

“A l’Origine” (In the Beginning) by Xavier Giannoli (France)

“Das Weisse Band” (The White Ribbon) by Michael Haneke (Germany)

“Taking Woodstock” by Ang Lee (Taiwan-United States)

“Looking for Eric” by Ken Loach (Britain)

“Spring Fever” by Lou Ye (China)

“Kinatay” (Butchered) by Brillante Mendoza (Philippines)

“Soudain le Vide” (Enter the Void) by Gaspar Noe (France)

“Bak-Jwi” (Thirst) by Park Chan-wook (South Korea)

“Les Herbes Folles” (Wild Grasses) by Alain Resnais (France)

“The Time That Remains” by Elia Suleiman (Palestinian)

“Inglourious Basterds” by Quentin Tarantino (United States)

“Vengeance” by Johnnie To (Hong Kong)

“Visages” (Face) by Tsai Ming-Liang (Malaysia)

“Antichrist” by Lars von Trier (Denmark)

Off-competition screenings:

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” by Terry Gilliam (United States)

“Agora” by Alejandro Amenabar (Spain)

“L’Armee du Crime” by Robert Guediguian (France)