CANNES — The cameras were flashing, the smiles were dazzling: Opening night at the Cannes film festival? Nope. The opening press conference. While the film world’s most famous red carpet provides the image, the opening presser, held immediately following the morning press screening, sets the tone.

A director is nowhere more vulnerable. The same goes for the hopes and dreams of Telefilm Canada and anyone else with a stake in the continuation and maturation of the Canadian film industry.

Fernando Meirelles felt it. The Brazilian director of Blindness was flanked by his international cast, including Julianne Moore and Danny Glover and two Canadians, screenwriter and actor Don McKellar and Niv Fichman, producer of the three-territory coproduction. Asked if he felt any pressure, Meirelles was disarmingly frank. ‘I still don’t think this is the best film to open the festival,’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful film but a hard one.’

As he spoke, the reviews of the trade papers were already online and they were certainly hard. Variety suggested Meirelles had proved correct novelist José Saramago’s original impulse not to sell the screen rights. Screen International called it ‘uneven’ and ‘unlikely to attract wide audiences,’ while The Hollywood Reporter called it ‘too cerebral and premeditated.’ On the upside, some journalists were already asking Moore which designer she would be wearing when she accepted her Oscar.

One down, one to go. Atom Egoyan’s Adoration screens next Friday.

But before then there are films from some strong contenders, including Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, Steven Soderbergh’s Che Guevara biopic Guerrilla (with a running time of over four hours) and previous Palme d’Or winners the Brothers Dardennes with Le Silence de Lorna. There are also wild cards aplenty, including the animated autobiographical Israeli war drama Waltz with Bashir, which screened for the press while Fichman and company climbed the opening-night red carpet. It already has critics predicting awards glory.

Then on Saturday comes Synecdoche, New York, the highly anticipated directing debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the Oscar-winning brains behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Now that is competition.