• Steven Soderbergh’s ambitious, sprawling, two-part biopic, Che, about the life of communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, opens to mixed-positive reviews at Cannes. From the AP:

“The heart of the film is the robust yet subtle portrayal of the asthma-stricken revolutionary by Benicio del Toro. He is an idealist who obviously really believes in the possibility of equality between human beings, but Soderbergh is mostly content to show repeated examples of his benevolence rather than develop its potentially complex contradictions.”

• Fashion icon Diane Von Furstenberg is set to host a VIP lunch in Cannes to fete Madonna’s new documentary about AIDS in Malawi (that’s Africa). The difference between the lunch’s setting and its subject matter is, uh, notable:

“The fete will take place aboard EOS, the $200 million 300-foot yacht owned by Von Furstenberg’s husband Barry Diller. And guests shouldn’t be late. “Launches will be waiting at 1:30 p.m. SHARP,” the invite reads. “

• An Israeli animated war documentary may beat out Clint Eastwood’s entry at the festival. The war doc, “Waltz With Bashir,” examines Israel’s 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut:

“Israeli director Ari Folman, a former soldier, unravels his own repressed memories of the horror of the killings and breaks new ground stylistically with the first-ever animated documentary at Cannes.

“I hope young people will watch this film, I hope they might be moved by the animation, the music, and I hope it might help them see that war really is about them just being used as pawns by other people,” Folman told AFP.”