Coppola heading Cannes sidebar

Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola will open the Directors' Fortnight at this year's Cannes Film Festival with his latest work Tetro.

The announcement follows the director's rejection of an out-of-competition slot at the prestigious cinema showcase.

Tetro, which tells of a young Italian-American who travels to Buenos Aires, will open the sidebar event on 14 May.

The rest of the Director's Fortnight line-up includes 23 features, seven of which are first films.

It also includes five films from directing duos, among them Jim Carrey movie I Love You Phillip Morris.

'Personal and independent'

Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, it tells of a con man, played by Carrey, who falls in love with a convict, played by Ewan McGregor.

Coppola, 70, had been invited to screen his latest film out of competition at Cannes this year.

The Oscar-winning director refused the invitation, saying a gala would not have been "true to the personal and independent nature of this film".

"This is an independent film, self-financed and self-released," he said in a statement last week.

Coppola is a two-time winner of the Palme d'Or, the festival's most prestigious honour.

Several established film-makers feature in this year's Directors' Fortnight, among them Canada's Denis Villeneueve and France's Luc Moullet.

The Cannes Film Festival will open this year with a screening of Pixar's latest animation Up.