Cannes Chatter: Sacha Baron Cohen Arrives on Camelback as The Dictator

The 65th Annual Cannes Film Festival is officially in full swing, with nearly everyone in Hollywood transported to the prestigious French fest for a week and a half of wheeling and dealing. Catch up on all the goings-on with Cannes Chatter.

Continuing his worldwide publicity trek for his new movie The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen arrived Wednesday morning to the Cannes Film Festival riding a camel and decked out in his over-the-top costume. In character as the tyrannical (and goofy) Admiral General Aladeen, Cohen rode the animal (named "Osama," of course) up to the Croisette beachfront, ordering his beauty queen body guards to stick up the onlooking press with assault rifles while Cohen made his way into a cafe. Cohen's stunt mirrors his last Cannes-inspired act of public defiance — in 2006, he walked the beach in a skimpy bathing suit in anticipation of Borat. [The Telegraph]

Alec Baldwin is reportedly teaming with director James Toback (Tyson) on a documentary film that will follow the duo as they attempt to raise money for another movie at Cannes. The meta non-fiction flick, running with the title Seduced and Abandoned, will chronicle the duo's attempts to secure funds for another vague project they hope to make in the future, while integrating interviews with famous faces like Martin Scorsese. Speaking to Deadline, Toback explains, "“We will talk to every billionaire financier in Cannes, to a few directors and movie stars to get a sense of where film is today and how it is changing as a business, and the whole evolution of Cannes from a pure festival to this bizarre mix of wildly diverse elements. It still clings to the pure notion of film, with all sorts of other ramifications from financial to maritime implications that make it so complex.” [Deadline]

Outside of the competition films, producers and talent are flocking to the festival to pitch and sell their latest projects. Among the movies in need of distributors are Ashton Kutcher's Steve Jobs biopic JOBS, Guillermo del Toro's 3D Pinnochio, Terrance Malick's two in-the-works films, Sophia Coppola's Bling Ring(which sports Emma Watson with a tramp stamp), the porn star biopic Lovelace and the latest from the Coen Bros., Inside Llewyn Davis. Who will take them home? Only time will tell… [Deadline]