It’s not every day you see footage of Hamilton, ON – the industrial, glamour-impaired next-door neighbour of Toronto – in competition at Cannes, much less under the direction of foreign arthouse fave Olivier Assayas, who shot several key scenes for his latest, Clean, on the less-than-savoury streets of Steeltown late last year.

‘He makes Hamilton look way way sexier than Paris,’ enthuses producer Niv Fichman of Rhombus Media, which handled the Canuck portion of the Canada/U.K./France copro. The pic was also produced by Edouard Weil of Rectangle Films in Paris and Xavier Marchand of London’s Haystack Production. TVA Films will distribute in Canada. ‘He loved the whole look of the city. Sometimes you can’t see the beauty in your own backyard,’ says Fichman.

Clean follows Maggie Cheung (Irma Vep) as a faded rock star’s wife who is arrested and jailed for heroin possession while in Canada. She spends six months behind bars in Hamilton before setting off for a new life in Paris. Nick Nolte, Martha Henry and Rhombus regular Don McKellar also star.

Stylistically, the film is ‘the grandchild of Goin’ Down the Road,’ says Fichman.

The shoot was kept quiet because Assayas did not want to attract press. Clean also shot in the U.K. and France and is now among the 18 international films in competition at Cannes, playing alongside Wong Kar-Wai’s 2046, Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries and Michael Moore’s latest, Fahrenheit 9/11. The 57th Cannes Film Festival runs May 12-23.

Clean is a minority Canadian copro, and the only feature from this country in competition this year, along with Michele Cournoyer’s short Accordion. Other Canadian pictures playing Cannes include shorts Ryan by Chris Landreth and L’homme sans ombre by Georges Schwizgebel, Carole Laure’s feature CQ2, and the doc What Remains of Us, a hit at last month’s Hot Docs in Toronto.

This year is the first time that artistic director Thierry Fremaux is entirely in charge of the selections, which diverge somewhat from those of previous fests. Half of the films in competition are from the U.S. or France, including a number of mainstream Hollywood pics, such as Shrek 2, due out this month, and The Ladykillers, which opened domestically to tepid reviews in March.

Fichman believes Fremaux is looking to put his stamp on the storied French fete, selecting more films by up-and-coming talent as well as movies by old masters.

A release date has not been set for Clean and will depend on its reception in France, although Fichman expects to roll it out in a manner similar to that of The Saddest Music in the World, currently playing in Canada on a platform release. While in France, Fichman will talk up distributors on Blindness, a new project in development from McKellar.

-www.festival-cannes.fr