Pitt skips Cannes launch as baby's birth 'imminent'

CANNES, France - Brad Pitt skipped the the Cannes film festival launch of his new film 'Babel' because of the "imminent arrival" of his baby with partner Angelina Jolie.

Co-stars Cate Blanchett, Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal and Japan's Koji Yakusho were on hand for the screening.

Pitt made his apologies in a email read out at a news conference after the film's launch at the festival in France.

"With the imminent arrival of the newest addition to our family, I am unable to join Alejandro, Cate, Gael and the rest of the cast and crew in introducing" his new film, Babel, the 42-year-old actor said in the message.

"I am tremendously proud of Babel and want to congratulate everyone involved for this great achievement," Pitt said.

Blanchett's words about working with Pitt were even warmer.

"In terms of working with Brad, it's like chocolate. He's glorious and wonderful and I really wanted to work with him for a long time."

Pitt and Cate Blanchett star in the powerful film, an examination of linguistic, cultural and personal barriers that sweeps across three continents and tackles terrorism, immigration and suicide.

In competition at the Cannes film festival, the movie by Mexican "21 Grams" director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is seen as one of the favourites for the coveted "Palme d'Or" prize, although there are eight films still to show.

Pitt and Blanchett portray a couple on holiday in Morocco when tragedy strikes, and their story is linked to that of two shepherd boys living in a remote village.

A third narrative takes the audience to the US-Mexican border where a trusted nanny becomes embroiled in a terrifying journey of her own, and in Japan, a deaf and mute girl struggles to get over her mother's death and break down social prejudice.

Inarritu weaves the plots together into a rich cinematic tapestry, where established actors like Pitt, Blanchett, Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal and Japan's Koji Yakusho appear alongside little known actors from northern Africa.

Misunderstanding and miscommunication appear on every level, between father and son, husband and wife, police and civilians and country to country.

For Inarritu, the main theme of the film was not language. Its title is taken from the Biblical story of people seeking to build a tower to God who are punished by being divided through language.

"For me that (language) is not the problem," he told a news conference. "Language can be very easy to break.

"For me the problem is the ideas and the preconceptions we have from one to another which really pull us apart. I want this film to be basically about not what separates us but what gets us together.

"We see the other always as a threat. Being different means being dangerous."

Power and its abuse

While the film was mainly about barriers on a personal level, it sends clear messages about political problems including misunderstandings on the U.S.-Mexican border and those surrounding the issue of religious extremism.

"On the border what is happening is terrible, and the way they try to pretend everybody is a terrorist," Inarritu said of the United States.

The shooting incident involving the characters played by Pitt and Blanchett is immediately seized upon by the world's media as an attack by Islamic radicals, but the truth is far less sinister if not less tragic for the victim.

For many of the actors, the press conference was the first time they had met.

Babel is one of three South American films among the 20 in competition in Cannes this year. The others are "Pan's Labyrinth" by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro and "Cronica De Una Fuga" by Uruguayan director Israel Adrian Caetano.

- REUTERS