Coppola returns to Cannes, but where is Vincent Gallo?

The great Francis Ford Coppola, one of the few directors to have won the Palme d'Or twice (for The Conversation in 1974 and Apocalypse Now in 1979), has arrived in Cannes to open the 'director's fortnight' sidebar to the main festival with his new Argentinian-set film, Tetro.

He has in tow his Spanish leading lady, the lovely Maribel Verdu, best known for her starring roles in Y Tu mama Tambien and Pan's Labyrinth. In Tetro, Verdu takes the role of the wife of a washed up writer played by the New York actor Vincent Gallo.

However, there is no sign of Gallo in the Coppola party - for which there is a very good reason.

Gallo famously left Cannes with his tail between his legs in 2003 when a notorious road movie he directed and starred in was greeted with boos and catcalls by the festival audience. The Brown Bunny was famed for two reasons: (a) it was incredibly boring, due to interminable scenes of Gallo riding his motorbike across America, and (b) it climaxed with one of cinema's rare un-simulated sex scenes, in which Chloe Sevigny performed fellatio on Gallo.

A giant billboard for the film, showing Sevigny on her knees before the gaunt figure of Gallo, had to be taken down after it shocked Los Angeles. But not half as much as the film itself bored Cannes. Hundreds of members of the audience walked out while the remainder simply booed. Sevigny was reportedly reduced to tears and a humiliated Gallo went back to the cutting room.

There is a happy ending: after being cut by almost a quarter, The Brown Bunny was released and even found favour with the American critic Roger Ebert who had earlier called it the worst film in the history of Cannes.

How will Coppola's Tetro fare tonight? The omens are good, with some who have seen it saying Coppola is on magnificent form. We know what Coppola himself thinks: when someone stole a computer from his Buenos Aires studio containing the script for Tetro, he told Time magazine with a straight face: "The script was finished. It made Hamlet look like garbage." ·