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Concerns that Europe's debt crisis could drag down parts of the continent's banking system rattled global markets on Friday, while the IPO of social network Facebook failed to buoy spirits on Wall Street.

Ratings agency Moody's downgraded 16 Spanish banks late Thursday, three days after downgrading 26 Italian lenders, noting they are vulnerable to huge losses on government debt.

In Spain's case, the lenders are also exposed to tens of billions of euros (dollars) in soured investments in the country's imploded real estate market. Their bad loans have hit an 18-year high, according to new figures compiled by the Bank of Spain.

Worries over Spain were reignited in the past two weeks by the prospect that Greece might leave the 17-country euro union. Anti-bailout political parties made huge gains in general elections on May 6, though that ballot proved inconclusive. Another election will be held on June 17, and the radical left party Syriza is forecast to make gains, possibly becoming the biggest party.

Syriza rejects the international bailout — and the related austerity measures — that the former government negotiated.

But without that rescue package, Greece will likely default and have to leave the eurozone. That would result in financial disaster for Greece and send shockwaves through European markets, destabilizing other weak countries.

Fitch ratings agency downgraded Greece to the lowest possible grade for a country not in default on Thursday, noting that if the next elections do not produce a government that supports the bailout, Greece's exit from the eurozone "would be probable."

After a day of volatile trading, Britain's FTSE 100 closed 0.7 percent lower at 5,267.62 while Germany's DAX dropped 0.6 percent to 6,271.22. France's CAC-40 shed 0.1 percent to 3,008.

Spain's main stock index recovered 0.2 percent from heavy losses on Thursday, thanks mainly to a bounce back in the shares of state-controlled lender Bankia, which had plummeted on Thursday on reports of an increase in deposit withdrawals. They rose 23.5 percent on Friday, more than making up for a 14 percent drop the previous day.

Wall Street tracked European stocks lower on Friday after Facebook shares failed to sustain early gains on their first day of trading. The stock surged 10 percent before falling back to trade around $39, just above the $38 initial offer price.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.4 percent at 12,397.69 and the S&P 500 lost 0.4 percent to 1,299.88.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 tumbled 3 percent to close at 8,611.31, its lowest finish in four months as signs of weakness in the U.S., a critical export market for Japanese companies, battered some of the country's behemoth manufacturers.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 1.3 percent to 18,951.85 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slid 2.7 percent to 4,046.50. South Korea's Kospi tumbled 3.4 percent to 1,782.46. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and New Zealand also fell.

Mainland Chinese shares lost ground, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index losing 1.4 percent to 2,344.52. The Shenzhen Composite Index fell 1.5 percent to 940.91.

Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 77 cents to $91.79 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 25 cents to settle at $92.56 in New York on Thursday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2711 from $1.2714 late Thursday in New York. The dollar rose slightly to 79.32 yen from 79.28 yen.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok and Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed to this report.

The head of a U.S.-owned marine salvage company chosen to remove the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship from the waters off Tuscany is predicting the vessel will be ready for towing by early next year.

Capt. Richard Habib is the managing director of Titan Salvage. He says the ship now lying on its side on rocky seabed near the port of Giglio island, will be back upright by the start of winter.

He said in Rome on Friday that once afloat, the wreckage will be towed to an Italian port for demolition.

Thirty-two people perished when the Concordia slammed into a reef off Giglio on Jan. 13. The ship's captain is under house arrest while being investigated for alleged manslaughter and abandoning ship during evacuation.

The head of a U.S.-owned marine salvage company chosen to remove the wreck of the Costa Concordia cruise ship from the waters off Tuscany is predicting the vessel will be ready for towing by early next year.

Capt. Richard Habib is the managing director of Titan Salvage. He says the ship now lying on its side on rocky seabed near the port of Giglio island, will be back upright by the start of winter.

He said in Rome on Friday that once afloat, the wreckage will be towed to an Italian port for demolition.

Thirty-two people perished when the Concordia slammed into a reef off Giglio on Jan. 13. The ship's captain is under house arrest while being investigated for alleged manslaughter and abandoning ship during evacuation.

The United Nations is urging participants at NATO summit this weekend to provide massive long-term support for Afghanistan's security forces to ensure that the country is never again a base for terrorism.

U.N. envoy to Afghanistan Jan Kubis said that in the run-up to the summit, the U.N. has been sending "a very strong message" to countries that are — and are not — part of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan that theinvestment of the last 10 years must not be lost. Kubis spoke Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Ahead of the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan in 2014, Kubis said countries at the summit should deliver "a clear commitment" to contribute as much as possible toward the $4.1 billion yearly goal for Afghan security forces.

British officials have given their word: "We won't read your emails."

But experts say the government's proposed new surveillance program will gather so much data that spooks won't have to read your messages to guess what you're up to.

The U.K. Home Office stresses it won't be reading the content of every Britons' communications, saying the data it seeks "is NOT the content of any communication." It is, however, looking for information about who's sending the message and to whom, where it's sent from and other details, including a message's length and its format.

The proposal, unveiled last week as part of the government's annual legislative program, is just a draft bill, so it could be modified or scrapped. But if passed in its current form, it would put a huge amount of personal data at the government's disposal, which it could use to deduce a startling amount about Britons' private lives — from sleep patterns to driving habits or even infidelity.

"We're really entering a whole new phase of analysis based on the data that we can collect," said Gerald Kane, an information systems expert at Boston College. "There is quite a lot you can learn."

The ocean of information is hard to fathom. Britons generate 4 billion hours of voice calls and 130 billion text messages annually, according to industry figures. In 2008, the BBC put the annual number of U.K.-linked emails at around 1 trillion.

Then there are instant messaging services run by companies such as BlackBerry, Internet telephone services such as Skype, chat rooms, and in-game services like those used by World of Warcraft.

Communications service providers, who would log all that back-and-forth, believe the government's program would force them to process petabytes (1 quadrillion bytes) of information every day. It's a mind-boggling amount of data, on the scale of every book, movie and piece of music ever released.

So even without opening emails, how much can British spooks learn about who's sending them?

THEY'LL SEE THE RED FLAGS

Did you know how fast you were going?

Your phone does.

If you sent a text from London before stepping behind the wheel, and a second one from a service station outside Manchester three hours later, authorities could infer that you broke the speed limit to cover the roughly 200 miles that separate the two.

Crunching location data and communications patterns gives a remarkably rich view of people's lives — and their misadventures.

Ken Altshuler, of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, raves about the benefits smartphones and social media have brought to savvy divorce attorneys. Lawyers don't need sophisticated data mining software to spot evidence of infidelity or hints of hidden wealth when they review phone records or text traffic, he said.

"One name, one phone number that's not on our client's radar, and our curiosity is piqued," he said. The more the communication — a late-night text sent to a work colleague, an unexplained international phone call — is out of character, "the more of a red flag we see."

THEY'LL KNOW WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING

The ebb and flow of electronic communication — that call to your mother just before bed, that early-morning email to your boss saying you'll be late — frames our waking lives.

"You can figure somebody's sleep patterns, their weekly pattern of work," said Tony Jebara, a Columbia University expert on artificial intelligence. In 2006, he helped found New York-based Sense Networks, which crunches phone data to do just that.

Jebara said that calls made from the same location from 9 to 5 are a good indication of where a person works; the frequency of email traffic to or from a person's work account is a good hint of his or her work ethic; dramatic changes to a person's electronic routine might suggest a promotion — or a layoff.

"You can quickly figure out when somebody lost their job," Jebara said, adding: "Credit card companies have been interested in that for a while."

THEY'LL KNOW WHO'S THE BOSS

Drill down, and communication can reveal remarkably rich information. For example, does office worker A answer office worker B's missives within minutes of the message being sent? Does B often leave colleagues' emails unanswered for hours on end? If so, B probably stands for "boss."

That's an example of what Jebara's Columbia colleagues call "automated social hierarchy detection," a technique that can infer who gives the orders, who's respected and who's ignored based purely on whose emails get answered and how quickly. In 2007, they analyzed traffic from the Enron Corporation's email archive to correctly guess the seniority of several top-level managers.

Intelligence agencies may not need such tools to untangle corporate flowcharts, but identifying ringleaders becomes more important when tracking a suspected terrorist cell.

"If you piece together the chain of influence, then you can find the central authority," he said. "You can figure that out without looking at the content."

THEY'LL KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO

Seeing how networks of people communicate isn't just about finding your boss. It's about figuring out who your friends are.

Programs already exist to determine the density of communications — something that can identify close groups of friends or family without even knowing who's who. If one user is identified as suspicious, then users closest to him or her might get a second look as well.

"Let's say we find out somebody in the U.K. is a terrorist," said Kane. "You know exactly who he talks to on almost every channel, so BOOM you know his 10 closest contacts. Knowing that information not only allows you to go to his house, but allows you to go to their houses as well."

A SNOOPER'S CHARTER?

Detective work at the stroke of a key is clearly attractive to spy agencies. British officialdom has been pushing for a mass surveillance program for years. But civil libertarians are perturbed, branding the proposal a "snooper's charter."

Kane says the surveillance regime has to be seen in the context of social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, where hundreds of millions of people are constantly volunteering information about themselves, their friends, their family and their colleagues.

"There's no sense in getting all Big Brother-ish," he said. "The bottom line is that we're all leaving digital trails, everywhere, all the time. The whole concept of privacy is shifting daily."

There's sun, sand and sex in Cannes Film Festival entry "Paradise: Love" — and they add up to a grim and unsettling holiday movie.

Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's film depicts middle-aged European women at a Kenyan holiday resort seeking romance with young local men. It had its gala premiere Friday in Cannes, where it is one of 22 films competing for the Palme d'Or.

The movie stars Margarethe Tiesel as a 50-year-old Austrian whose search for love turns increasingly predatory. But the actress told journalists that she did not judge the character's behavior. She said the movie examined female loneliness and the way "people who are exploited at home travel abroad and become exploiters in turn."

Seidl, who looked at east-west friction in Europe in his 2007 Cannes entry "Import/Export," plans the film as the first in a trilogy about modern tourism.

The director views his European and African characters with the detached eye of an anthropologist. Seidl began as a documentary maker, and even on his fiction features shoots without scripted dialogue and mixes professional and nonprofessional actors.

"Paradise: Love" had a mixed reception from critics in Cannes. Some accused it of reproducing the exploitation of Africans that it claims to examine — or, like the Hollywood Reporter, simply found it "a psychologically empty wallow."

Others praised the bravery of the actors, who are required to strip naked, physically and emotionally, as they enact the characters' sexual negotiations.

"It wasn't easy, it's true," Tiesel said. "It was a challenge to surpass yourself, to go beyond your comfort zone. But in the beginning Ulrich said to me: 'Nothing will happen that you don't want to happen.' So that reassured me."

The film's title is ironic: this is no paradise, and there is little love. But Seidl rejected the suggestion he is a pessimist.

"As a filmmaker my goal is to depict things as honestly as possible," he said. "To deal with social systems, to show them as realistically as possible. Negative, positive, pessimistic, whatever — that's not really the point here."

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Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

An Iranian-born singer who went into hiding after receiving death threats for allegedly insulting a Shiite saint said Friday he didn't intend to provoke the wrath of religious extremists.

Shahin Najafi, who has lived in Germany since 2005, said he plans to continue writing and eventually performing songs despite the threats against him, which appeared on online forums and in his email inbox last week.

"I'm in a safe place, reading and playing my guitar," he told The Associated Press in a telephone call.

The threats began after comments by officials and religious authorities in Iran were taken to mean the 31-year-old singer had committed apostasy with a humorous song titled "Naghi."

In the song, which featured on an album where the cover showed a mosque's dome shaped like a woman's breast, the singer complains to an eponymous 9th century Islamic saint about plastic surgery and Chinese prayer rugs.

Najafi first contacted German police about the threats May 8. A day later, an unknown person posting on a Persian-language website put a $100,000 bounty on his head.

"That's when I realized it was really serious," Najafi said.

Carlo Kreitz, a spokesman for police in the western German city of Cologne, said authorities too are taking the threats seriously. He said officers had held a security briefing with Najafi but declined to provide further details, citing safety concerns.

The case has been compared in Germany to that of British author Salman Rushdie, who went into hiding for years after Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued an edict sentencing him to death for allegedly insulting Islam.

Najafi denies any intentional insult.

"I wrote a song like I always do. I didn't aim to provoke religious people or Islamic radicals," he Najafi. "I just want to live in freedom."

The U.N. nuclear agency chief will fly to Tehran over the weekend to sign a deal meant to allow his organization to resume probing Iran's disputed nuclear program, the agency and diplomats said Friday.

An International Atomic Energy Agency statement announcing the Sunday trip said only that Yukiya Amano would "discuss issues of mutual interest with high Iranian officials" during his one-day visit, which will include a meeting with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

But diplomats said the visit was scheduled to allow both sides to agree on an accord outlining the mechanics of IAEA access to sites, information and officials it seeks for its investigation into whether Tehran secretly conducted nuclear weapons research and development.

The diplomats demanded anonymity because their information was confidential. They cautioned that signing such a deal was only the first step, adding that its implementation was the true test of Iranian willingness to end more than four years of refusing to work with the IAEA probe after some initial cooperation.

Still, if Iran does abide by such a deal and give the IAEA the access it seeks, that could result in putting to rest the dispute over whether the Islamic Republic hid such work from the rest of the world.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but the U.S. and others doubt its sincerity.

Iranian officials are to meet with delegates from the U.S. and five other world powers in Baghdad on Wednesday. Washington in particular hopes to wrest nuclear concessions from Tehran aimed at reducing fears it seeks to develop atomic arms.

Tehran could point to any deal reached with Amano as proof of its willingness to compromise and demand that the six — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — in return temper demands that Iran end higher-level enrichment of uranium, which can quickly be turned into fissile warhead material.

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Associated Press writer Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed.

A German opera house says renowned baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has died. He was 86.

Berlin's Deutsche Oper said the singer of opera and artistic songs died Friday at his home in Bavaria in southern Germany.

Culture Minister Bernd Neumann says Fischer-Dieskau "deeply moved countless people around the world for more than half a century through hundreds of concerts and recordings."

He said Fischer-Dieskau's recordings of works by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss set benchmarks for generations of singers to come, especially through his famous representation of Schubert's "Winter Journey."

Klaus Staeck, president of the German Academy of Arts, said Fischer-Dieskau's "performances of some of the great roles in operatic history shaped the culture of singing."

Tens of thousands of protesters in Bahrain have joined a march to denounce proposals for closer unity between the unrest-torn Gulf Kingdom and neighboring Saudi Arabia.

An Associated Press journalist estimated the demonstration stretched for more than three miles (five kilometers).

There were no immediate reports of violence, but the huge turnout Friday points to strong opposition to proposals to unify the decision making between the Sunni rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Gulf leaders earlier this week delayed any decision on the unity plans.

Bahrain's Shiite-led protesters strongly object to the plan. The nation's majority Shiites began an uprising 15 months ago for a stronger political voice in the Sunni-ruled nation.

Greece's day-old Parliament held its last session Friday to allow for new elections next month that are being cast as a decision on whether to keep the country in the 17-nation eurozone — even if that means accepting a deeply unpopular austerity program.

Inconclusive elections on May 6 left squabbling politicians unable to form a government, deepening a political crisis and giving strength to radical parties that reject the terms of the country's international bailout, without which it would default and have to drop out of the currency union with catastrophic financial consequences.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias is expected to formally dissolve Parliament and call elections on Saturday.

In a symbolic move Thursday, the 300 legislators elected May 6 were sworn in for just one day, including 21 lawmakers from the far-right Golden Dawn party. A caretaker government will lead Greece until the new election expected on June 17, but it can't make any binding decisions.

Such political paralysis comes at a critical time for Greece, which must make more budget cutbacks next month to get new funds from its international bailout, which has kept the country afloat since May 2010.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with President Papoulias by telephone on Friday to underscore EU hopes that a government emerges from the June 17 poll with a strong mandate.

"We're awaiting the results of these elections and it's the wish of all European partners and the (German) government that a government capable of taking decisions in Greece should be formed as quickly as possible after the elections," said Georg Steiner, Germany's deputy government spokesman.

With a government unable to make binding decisions until the elections, all eyes will be on Germany and other European leaders for signs that they will prove flexible in their demands for the new cuts next month and, more broadly, in Greece's bailout terms.

While Merkel has hinted that European economic policies could be supplemented with more growth-oriented measures, she has not signaled any willingness to significantly ease Athens' austerity plan.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz urged Greeks to stay the austerity course amid a growing belief in Europe that austerity ought to be counterbalanced with growth-boosting measures.

"We are living in a time when in Europe, finally, there is talk of growth and employment and not only of one-sided austerity. This is exactly the point in time when Greece should not give up," Schulz said during a visit to Athens on Friday.

"I will try to do my part and tell the Greeks ' hang on, you went through (such a) difficult period, don't let all the sacrifice be for nothing."

The big winner from the May 6 election was the second-placed Radical Left Coalition, or Syriza, which capitalized on public discontent by promising to either toss out entirely or revise Greece's austerity commitments. It insists nevertheless that it wants to keep the country in the euro.

Opinion polls suggest the June 17 election will be a closely contested affair between Syriza and the two mainstream, pro-austerity parties that alternated in power for the past four decades and which have lost more than half their support.

JP Morgan Chase Bank analyst David Mackie raised the likelihood of a Greek euro exit from 20 percent to 50 percent if Syriza wins the elections and rejects the eurozone-imposed austerity measures outright. That could prompt Greece's creditors to withhold any further bailout funds and push the country into reverting back to its old currency, the drachma.

Mackie said a Greek eurozone exit would see the country's gross domestic product shrink by as much as 25-30 percent.

"If the direct effects of default were the only thing to worry about, a Greek exit would be manageable as far as the rest of the region is concerned," said Mackie.

The biggest risk is that Greece's exit from the euro could destabilize other financially weak countries in Europe, causing their borrowing rates to rise as investors worry they may also eventually leave the currency union.

Even if Syriza does win there is a slight chance that Greece could stay in the eurozone, as long as it's willing to compromise, Mackie said.

"The key issue is whether there are terms of continued EMU membership that are acceptable to both sides. There will be an attempt to reach a compromise, which is possible if both sides are willing to concede some ground."

The heightened uncertainty about which way Greek voters will go prompted Fitch ratings agency on Thursday to downgrade Greece to the lowest possible grade for a country that is not in default, warning of a "probable" Greek exit from the euro currency union if next month's poll results in an anti-bailout government.

In the streets of Athens, people expressed a mixture of apprehension over the future of the country and anger with politicians who let it come so far.

"For me, the political system needs to sit down and come to an understanding because they are killing our country, that is for sure," said Athens resident Georgia, who didn't give her last name. "If they don't do it, our country will be lost."

Officials have fired the Swiss architect tapped to design an ambitious museum of modern art in Poland's capital, throwing the whole project off track.

Warsaw development official Pawel Baranski said Friday that the city had canceled an agreement with Christian Kerez because he missed deadlines and failed to secure permits needed for features such as plumbing, electricity and ventilation.

City Hall also is demanding almost 5.5 million zlotys ($1.6 million; €1.2 million) in fines from Kerez for what it says are delays in the design process.

Kerez blamed the delays on city officials who he said obstructed his work or made impossible demands. He also said it was city authorities' responsibility to get permission for plumbing, electricity and other installations.

The planned museum is supposed to be a vast building in a prime spot in the city center, just next to the landmark Palace of Culture.

Kerez won a competition in 2007 to design the museum, which Warsaw hopes will boost tourism. City officials are considering holding a new competition to find another architect.

Pope Benedict XVI has praised the "great generosity" of American Catholics in welcoming new immigrants and backed the commitment of bishops in the United States to immigration reform.

Benedict on Friday held the last of a series of periodic meetings with American bishops over the past few months, saying the church must embrace "the rich patrimony of faith" from newly arrived Hispanic, Asian and African Catholics.

He acknowledged that immigration reform — a hot button issue in the election campaign — is a complex civil and political issue.

In his earlier meetings with the visiting U.S. bishops, Benedict has touched on other controversial issues that have featured in the presidential campaign, including condemning the gay marriage lobby and stressing the need for the Catholic Church to be free to pursue its religious teaching.

"I would begin by praising your unremitting efforts, in the best traditions of the church in America, to respond to the ongoing phenomenon of immigration in your country," the pope said.

"The Catholic community in the United States continues, with great generosity, to welcome waves of new immigrants, to provide them with pastoral care and charitable assistance, and to support ways of regularizing their situation, especially with regard to the unification of families. A particular sign of this is the long-standing commitment of the American bishops to immigration reform," Benedict said.

"This is clearly a difficult and complex issue from the civil and political, as well as the social and economic, but above all from the human point of view. It is thus of profound concern to the church, since it involves ensuring the just treatment and the defense of the human dignity of immigrants," Benedict said.

In more general terms, Benedict spoke of the challenges facing the church, including threats to its unity.

He also singled out nuns for praise, saying, "I wish to reaffirm my deep gratitude for the example of fidelity and self-sacrifice given by many consecrated women in your country."

A recent Vatican demand for reform of the largest umbrella group for nuns in the United States has raised eyebrows and anger among some Catholics. The group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is accused of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting "certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

Diplomats: IAEA chief to fly to Iran to seal deal to allow probe of alleged nuclear arms work.

The head of the U.N. nuclear agency is set to travel to Tehran Sunday to hold talks with high-ranking Iranian officials.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano's visit could signal an agreement has been reached that would allow his organization to resume a probe of suspicions that Iran may have worked on developing nuclear weapons, according to the Associated Press.

Iran has refused to allow the U.N. agency access to sites, information and officials connected to the probe for more than four years.

According to a press release, Amano will meet with the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Council, His Excellency Saeed Jalili, and other senior representatives of the Iranian government during his one-day visit.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Poland's president says he will press NATO leaders at an upcoming summit to stick to plans to end its military mission in Afghanistan in 2014, and for member states to offer financial support to the nation after troops have left.

Bronislaw Komorowski said Friday he will press for NATO to confirm U.S. President Barack Obama's plans for the withdrawal at the summit in Chicago from May 20-21. Poland has some 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and has been reducing its contingent.

Komorowski also said those giving any financial aid will face "tough decisions" as to whether the money should be spent on building security, or on civilian needs.

Venezuela's top prisons official says about 300 inmates have left a troubled penitentiary where a three-week standoff by a group of armed inmates has prevented authorities from retaking control of the facility.

Prisons minister Iris Varela says inmates have been steadily leaving La Planta prison to be transferred to other penitentiaries.

The inmates began filing out on Thursday hours after heavy gunfire erupted inside the prison. Authorities have been trying to persuade members of the armed group inside La Planta to leave so it can be closed.

Varela says that if inmates continue to leave as she hopes, the prison could be cleared out on Friday.

The breakout performance at the Cannes Film Festival this year is Aniello Arena's turn as a Naples fishmonger who becomes obsessed with appearing on a "Big Brother"-style TV show in "Reality."

But the star will not be walking the red carpet at the Italian movie's gala premiere Friday. He'll be where he has been for two decades — in prison.

Arena is riveting in the film by "Gomorrah" director Matteo Garrone — lively, likable and lost — and many viewers were astonished to learn he is a lifer who has worked for a decade with the respected Fortezza prison theater company but has never appeared in a feature film.

"I wanted him to appear in 'Gomorrah,' but the judge wouldn't allow it," said Garrone, whose bloody crime drama won Cannes' second prize in 2008. "We received the authorization for him to appear in the film (Reality) but he was not allowed to come here to Cannes."

Garrone said the absence was "not too bitter a disappointment" for Arena, because the movie's success means he can continue acting. Movie publicists would not comment on the nature of his crime.

Incarceration — mental rather than physical — is a theme of the movie, the only Italian entry among 22 contenders for Cannes' top prize, the Palme d'Or. Arena plays Luciano, a hustling but cheery family man who becomes obsessed with the notion of television fame.

Garrone said the film depicts reality TV as "a paradise on Earth — a kind of El Dorado that people want to reach." Entering the "Big Brother" house becomes an idea that traps Luciano and gradually takes over his life.

The director said the 40-something Arena's exposure to the outside world after years behind bars helped him capture the essence of a man who is beguiled by a world that is new to him.

"I think you can see that in his eyes and in his look," said Garrone. "The character had to be portrayed by someone who is quite candid."

It's a departure from "Gomorrah," his blood-soaked portrait of Naples' ruthless Camorra crime syndicate. Garrone said he spent a long time looking for a "powerful subject" for his follow-up feature before alighting on the idea of a simple tale that would allow him to show another slice of Neapolitan life and "portray with great love a character while denouncing an aspect of society."

It's hard not to see the story as a satire on our celebrity-obsessed culture, but Garrone wants it to have the timeless quality of a fable. He compares it to "Pinocchio," the story of a puppet who yearns to be a real boy. Luciano is a real man who yearns to be a celebrity.

"I don't think I have ever been a very realistic director," Garrone said. "I talk about reality and then transfigure it, lend another dimension — and then it becomes a fable."

"Reality" is full of heart and humor — especially from the voluble, Fellini-esque assortment of characters who make up Luciano's family and neighbors — but it turns darker as Luciano's single-minded pursuit of fame leads to a kind of madness.

"Initially our idea was to produce a comedy," said screenwriter Ugo Chiti. "I think the comedy evolved ... and turned into a sort of tragedy."

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Jill Lawless can be reached at http:twitter.com/JillLawless

In Wes Anderson's "Moonrise Kingdom," the famously meticulous director takes his fastidiously fashioned world and flings it into the woods.

Even a relatively loose Anderson film is more ornately composed than most dollhouses, so no one should expect cinema verite in his latest fable. But there is — gasp! — actual handheld camera work in "Moonrise Kingdom," a story of pre-adolescent love on a rustic New England island.

For Anderson, whose previous film was the animated "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," it's a welcome return to the vagaries of live-action filmmaking.

"It was nice to have the sort of lack of control that you get on the set," Anderson said in a seaside interview in Cannes, where "Moonrise" opened the prestigious film festival before releasing in theaters May 25. "It's nice to go on location with a group. That's something I kind of missed."

"Your year takes a certain shape when you're making a movie," he added. "I like that."

Making "Moonrise Kingdom" was essentially sleep-away camp for Anderson's usual troupe of actors (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman), as well as a few new inductees (Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand).

Shot on an island in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, the film is about a 12-year-old orphan (Jared Gilman) who runs away from his scout troupe — the Boy Scout-like Khaki Scouts, whose leader is played by Norton — with his young love (Kara Hayward), the melancholy daughter of a local family (Murray, McDormand). Set in 1965, it's a more innocent, quaint America.

While Anderson's movies — "Rushmore," ''The Royal Tenenbaums" — have often had a childlike sense of whimsy, "Moonlight Kingdom" is almost entirely from the perspective of the children. It started for Anderson with his own memory of first love, a mysterious new feeling he didn't act on, unlike his young protagonist.

"It's a memory of an emotion, but kind of a memory of a fantasy as well," says Anderson. "Everything that happens in the story is what didn't happen to me."

But there are many elements of Anderson's own experience in the film, too. Like Hayward's character, he found a parental guide to "troubled" children atop his refrigerator, terrified and ashamed to know it applied to him.

Anderson has, naturally, stocked the film full of carefully chosen accoutrements, like faux children's books with covers specifically designed by various contributors. But when the two kids set off into the wilderness, a more natural environment fills the screen.

Roman Coppola co-wrote the script with Anderson, helped tease out the story from a long-gesticulating concept of Anderson's, which had amounted to just 15 pages of material and some fragments. Coppola, who also co-wrote Anderson's India-set "The Darjeeling Limited," believes the director is increasingly looking for chaotic environments for drama.

"If you look at his desk, everything will be lined up in perfect rows, so there's something in his personality that's drawn to that sense of symmetry and order — it's somewhat who he is," says Coppola. "But I think recently, when I worked with him on 'Darjeeling' and this film, that he's drawn to situations and settings that have disorder just automatically."

Anderson says he often begins a film with only a small shred of an idea, like "Royal Tenenbaums," which started with just the image of a girl exiting a bus, and an unrelated scene of a meltdown on a tennis court. Such scant beginnings are all the more remarkable for the deeply layered finished films: "Tenenbaums" became a full portrait of an intellectual New York family a la "The Magnificent Ambersons."

"It always feels like the story exists somewhere and you're just discovering it," says Anderson. He recently finished a new script — one "particularly unrelated" to "Moonrise," he says — with unusual speed. It began from researching a real-life character that has little to do with the finished story.

While Anderson's films have often revolved around a clash of innocence with a cynical world, "Moonrise Kingdom" is his most stark dichotomy of adults and children. In the film, the grown-ups react variously to the children's gambit, with a chance for redemption for Willis' police officer.

"His adults are always kind of wrangling disappointment," said Swinton, who plays a bureaucrat simply called "Social Services," in a news conference at Cannes. "And this film, I think maybe more than any other film, the adults are the disappointed ones and the children, they've got the grail."

Schwartzman, a frequent collaborator with Anderson since "Rushmore" who considers the director his mentor, thinks his films are getting slightly deconstructed.

"I feel like Wes in each movie is examining, in a more intense way, an aspect of something that's in his own body and world," says Schwartzman. "And I think in other movies he's examined or played around with the idea of young feelings of love and feeling stuck or confused."

The wisdom of one of Anderson's characters comes to mind: Gene Hackman's rascal Royal Tenenbaum, who implored, with a glint in his eye: "I'm talking about taking it out and chopping it up."

David Beckham wants two things: the flame to burn right and a spot on Britain's Olympic team.

The former England national team captain and Los Angeles Galaxy star will light a cauldron at a ceremony Friday when the flame arrives in southwestern England from Greece on the eve of a 70-day torch relay for the 2012 London Olympics.

"I hope it lights," he said with a chuckle.

Beckham, Princess Anne and London organizing chairman Sebastian Coe are escorting the flame, a symbol of peace and unity that harkens back to the origins of the games in ancient Greece.

Beckham been involved in the London Games since the organizing committee launched its successful bid in 2005m and the 37-year-old is excited about the chance to welcome the world to his "hood" in east London.

His star power — the kind that sends children into shrieks of hysteria and turns diplomats' wives in Athens into paparazzi — is part of the reason the International Olympic Committee took notice of the London bid over Paris, the favorite.

While Beckham the celebrity isn't shirking the attention the Olympic torch brings, Beckham the athlete really, really wants to take part on the pitch.

"I've never played in an Olympic Games," he said. "Obviously, I'd love to."

"I've always made it clear that I love representing my country," he added. "I've done that quite a few times."

He's done that 115 times, to be precise, with the England team.

Beckham has been included in coach Stuart Pearce's 80-man shortlist that will be whittled down to 18 players in the coming weeks to form Britain's first Olympic soccer squad since 1960. If chosen, he would be one of the three players over age 23 allowed on each Olympic squad.

Many a camera will be turned to the photogenic Beckham when the flame arrives at a Royal Navy air station in Cornwall on Friday night. The flame, traveling on the gold-painted British Airways Flight 2012, will be carried off by Princess Anne in a lantern. Beckham then will carry it to a gold-and-white cauldron, assuming it won't be too windy.

No matter what, there will be a backup. On the plane, the flame gets seats 1A and 1B all to itself. There are four flames just in case, all guarded by security.

All this might sound like a lot of attention for a bit of a fire, but London's Olympic organizers are hoping the flame's arrival can generate excitement about the games.

The torch will be carried all over the British Isles by 8,000 chosen volunteers, mostly local heroes. Its 8,000-mile (12,875-kilometer) journey will linger on the iconic sites — the tower of Big Ben, Stonehenge, the white cliffs of Dover — and speed past less-appealing areas. It ends up July 27 at Olympic Stadium in London.

Bookies are taking bets now on whether Beckham will be chosen open the Olympics by lighting the cauldron in London — a job he told reporters in Athens that he'd love to do. Other favorites include Roger Bannister, the first sub-four-minute miler, rower Steve Redgrave, Coe, Queen Elizabeth II or other members of Britain's royal family.

But no word on that — Coe says the decision hasn't even been discussed yet. For the moment, Beckham's just thrilled to light the cauldron at the navy base at Culdrose, southern England.

"Being here today just makes it all that real," he said in Athens. "Being handed the torch is the start of the games."

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Rob Harris in London contributed.