Adieu, Plancher Des Vaches (Home Sweet Home), honoured with a Special Screening, marks the fourth visit to Cannes by Otar Yoseliani (the English spelling is preferred here over the French Iosseliani). The romance between Cannes and the Georgian director (now based in Paris) goes back to 1968, when Yoseliani, then 34, was introduced to the Critics Week audience by the late French critic Louis Marcorelles.

His film, When Leaves Fall (1966/68), a gentle tale about a lad whose nonchalant life-style reflected traditional Georgian mores rather than conformist Soviet work ethics, had already been shelved for two years with little chance for release - until French critics put in a good word for both the director and the film with Goskino in Moscow.

Awarded both the Prix Georges Sadoul and the International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize, When Leaves Fall launched Yoseliani as an auteur on the spot.

The French critics were unable to free Yoseliani's equally provocative April (1961/87), a short film shelved for 16 years until Gorbachev's perestroika policy reformed the Soviet film industry. And it took Pierre-Henri Deleau four years to coax Soviet film authorities into allowing Yoseliani's lyrical Once There Lived a Song-Thrush (1970/74) to be presented at the Directors Fortnight in 1974. A poignant tragicomedy, about a young man in an orchestra who has time for everybody save himself, the film was an immediate critical success in Cannes.

Yoseliani's record of shelved feature films remained intact when his Pastorale (1976/81), a rambling, bucolic tale about a young string quartet spending their summer holidays rehearsing in the country, was banned without any specific reasons given.

Five years later, the International Forum of Young Cinema obtained permission from Goskino to present Pastorale at the 1981 Berlinale - and the film was promptly awarded another FIPRESCI prize. By this time, Yoseliani had received artist-in-residence grants from Paris and Berlin, and he was allowed to follow Andrei Tarkovsky into exile.

Adieu, Plancher Des Vaches takes place in present day Paris. Nicolas (Nico Tarielashvili), a wealthy young man still tied to his mother's apron strings, leaves the family estate to see the world, work odd jobs, and meet new friends. Blind to the truth, he views his new acquaintances as genuine heroes.

He falls in love with the lovely waitress Paulette (Stéphanie Hainque), without noticing that the maid Valerie (Mirbelle Kirkland) is interested in him. Paulette, in turn, loves the more down-to-earth Gaston (Philippe Bas), a man out to get whatever he can. Says Yoseliani: "The struggle for a place in the sun is exhausting." Ron Holloway