In the July issue of Sight & Sound, Stephen Frears writes about his experiences as president of the jury at Cannes this year. He offers a breathtaking explanation of why Joel and Ethan Coen's widely popular No Country For Old Men failed to collect any award from his jury. "Someone should have told the Coen brothers' producer not to put their film in competition," he states. "It was ridiculous. You're judging films that are made for audiences against films that are not."

It seems that Frears, who recently reached a substantial audience with The Queen, and his fellow Cannes jurors - among them actors Toni Collette, Sarah Polley and Michel Piccoli - were under the impression that the Cannes awards are actually designed as high-profile compensation for movies that seem doomed to box-office failure. Yet their jury gave awards to at least two films that are likely to fare very well on international release: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and the animated Persepolis.

And the Coens have been in competition at Cannes more often than most directors. Of their six previous entries, three collected awards and one, Barton Fink, received three prizes, including the coveted Palme d'Or. Irish audiences have a long wait - until February - for the release of No Country For Old Men.