"Blindness," a Fernando Meirelles movie starring Julianne Moore, will open this year's Cannes Film Festival, organizers said this week.

Based on a novel by Nobel laureate Jose Saramago, it's about a city where inhabitants inexplicably go blind, one by one. Moore, in Pittsburgh filming the supernatural horror thriller called "Shelter," stars as the sole person to keep her sight during the ordeal. Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal co-star.

Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened?," about a Hollywood producer struggling to make a film, is scheduled to close the festival. It stars Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, Robin Wright Penn, John Turturro and Sean Penn.

De Niro also is slated to present the top Palme d'Or prize at the end of the festival May 25. It kicks off May 14. (Associated Press)

Variety reported yesterday that Javier Bardem has dropped out of Rob Marshall's musical "Nine" due to exhaustion from work and the awards circuit that honored him for "No Country for Old Men."

Bardem was to play a film director juggling demands from the many women in his life. (Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette movie editor)

Ian McKellen will again take up the robes of Gandalf the Wizard in the cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic "The Hobbit," a British film magazine reported Wednesday.

But McKellen's publicist warned that final arrangements were yet to be made. "Of course he wants to do it, but nothing's been agreed or signed," Clair Dobbs said.

Empire magazine's Web site quoted McKellen as saying that director Guillermo del Toro told him he would again be playing the white-haired wizard, as he did in "Lord of the Rings."

"The Hobbit" is being produced by Peter Jackson, director of the "Rings" movies, and is likely to be filmed in his home country of New Zealand next year. (Associated Press)

If you're ever dreamed of being a movie extra, your time has come ... again.

The DreamWorks romantic comedy "She's Out of My League" needs background extras, ages 18 and up, to play passengers on a parked airplane Tuesday and Wednesday and to act as patrons at an air show on May 10 and 13.

Extras should expect to work 12 to 14 hours and will receive minimum wage, plus time and a half after eight hours. Contact Nancy Mosser Casting at www.mossercasting.com or 412-434-6416.

"She's out of My League" stars Jay Baruchel as an average Joe who falls for a woman, played by Alice Eve, who is out of his league. Baruchel and actor T.J. Miller, who plays his best friend, work in airport security in the movie. (Vancheri)

Dr. Philip Carli, whose keyboard accompaniment to classic movies has drawn standing ovations here, will return to Pittsburgh on Sunday. He will perform live original piano scores for two 1920s silent movies at the Regent Square Theater, 1035 S. Braddock Ave.

At 2 p.m., he will accompany "The Mark of Zorro," the 1920 swashbuckler starring Douglas Fairbanks as the masked hero, Senor Zorro, of old California.

At 8 p.m., Carli will provide music for "Flesh and the Devil," a pre-Production Code drama from 1926 starring Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, later a real-life twosome, in the story of two military cadets and blood brothers and one seductive woman.

Admission is $5 for children 12 and younger, and $10 for adults, with discounts for members of Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.

Tickets are available at the door 30 minutes before showtime. Go to www.pghfilmmakers.org for directions or other details. (Vancheri)

A young woman who graduated from Allegheny College and Gateway High School took the Grand Jury Prize (for best film) and Best Documentary Award at the annual Ivy Film Festival at Brown University last month.

Jaclyn Spirer, a December graduate of Allegheny, won for her film "Finding Matty's Voice" about a teenage boy with autism and his family. It was her senior comprehensive project at Allegheny and emerged from a field of 250 submissions and 34 finalists.

Other filmmakers were honored in categories such as experimental, drama, comedy and animation.

The seed for the 25-minute film was planted when Spirer was in high school and spent almost two years baby-sitting a boy, 10 years old when they met, with autism. "With this film, I wanted to open the door and invite people in to see Matty's world as he lives it," she says.

The festival was held in mid-April at Brown University and featured screenings of student films, panel discussions and addresses by industry heavyweights such as Martin Scorsese.

Spirer, the daughter of Cheryll and Gary Spirer of Monroeville, graduated from Gateway High School in 2004. She majored in Communication Arts and minored in Mathematics at Allegheny and now works for Sesame Workshop in New York. (Vancheri)