PARIS - The 59th edition of the Festival de Cannes unveiled its lineup Thursday under what the organizers are saying is a sign of renewal.

Of the 19 films In Competition, just one is from a director who has scooped the Palme d`Or, Cannes` top prize.

The organizers point out that this is in marked contrast to a 2005 lineup that was dominated by the usual Croisette suspects and included four prior Palme winners.

But there still are many familiar Cannes faces on the Competition list, including Nanni Moretti, who is represented by ’Il Caimano’ (The Caiman), his political satire about outgoing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Moretti was awarded the Palme d`Or in 2001 for ’The Son`s Room.’

Other Cannes old hands are Spain`s Pedro Almodovar, back with his spectral family drama ’Volver,’ starring Penelope Cruz; Aki Kaurismaki with the last part of his Finnish trilogy, ’Lights in the Dusk’; and British helmer Ken Loach with ’The Wind That Shakes the Barley,’ about two brothers who join a guerrilla army in 1919 to battle British Black and Tan squads.

Two of the three competing French directors also have had a prior outing In Competition.

Bruno Dumont will present his film ’Flanders,’ which is not about the Great War but rather the effects of an unnamed contemporary desert war on the ordinary people caught up in it. And Nicole Garcia will accompany her movie ’Selon Charlie’ (Charlie Said), an ensemble piece about seven characters going through an existential crisis.

"This year we had to open the doors and windows to try and let in some new talent," artistic director Thierry Fremaux said.

Newcomers to Competition - though not Cannes` other sections - include many from what Fremaux described as the "rising generation."

These include Sofia Coppola, whose modernist period drama ’Marie-Antoinette,’ with Kirsten Dunst in the title role, was shot in France, and Mexican helmer Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose ’Babel’ - which stars Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal - is his third collaboration with writer Guillermo Arriaga.

The strong Latino presence this year also includes Mexican writer-director Guillermo del Toro`s ’Pan`s Labyrinth,’ set against the backdrop of Franco`s Spain, and, in a different vein, ’Juventude em Marcha’ (’Youth on the March’), a contemporary tale of the down-trodden poor from Portuguese writer-director Pedro Costa.

Italy also features strongly with a second film In Competition, Paolo Sorrentino`s ’L`Amico di Famiglia’ (’The Family Friend’), about a usurer who worms his way into an Italian family, and a trio of documentary films in other sections.

Richard Linklater is represented by films in two Cannes sections.

His adaptation of the best-seller ’Fast Food Nation,’ which will be released domestically by Fox Searchlight, is running In Competition, while his Philip K. Dick adaptation, ’A Scanner Darkly,’ a Warner Independent Pictures U.S. release starring Keanu Reeves, pops up in the Un Certain Regard sidebar.

The third U.S. competing title is Richard Kelly`s musical sci-fi comedy ’Southland Tales,’ starring Justin Timberlake, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Dwayne ’The Rock’ Johnson.

Out of Competition screenings are dominated by English-language titles, including a premiere of the latest chapter in 20th Century Fox`s sci-fi action franchise, ’X-Men: The Last Stand’; DreamWorks` ’Over the Hedge,’ with Bruce Willis set to be in town to promote the animated film; and U.K. director Paul Greengrass` Universal film ’United 93,’ a dramatization of events on the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.

The festival`s closing film is ’Transylvania,’ directed by Tony Gatlif.