Variety is reporting that both Benh Zeitlin's magical realism film Beasts of the Southern Wild and Lee Daniels' The Paperboy, his period crime thriller set in 1960's Florida, are very stong contenders to be selected for this year's Cannes Film Festival, which will be held this year from May 16-27.

There are several American films that are very strong likely choices for this year's festival, and Daniels, being a Cannes favorite after the successful screening of his film Precious at the 2009 festival, and Zeitlin's film, which has gotten major acclaim at previous film festival screenings and is scheduled to be released by Fox Searchlight in late June, makes both of them almost certain locks for this year's festival.

The 2012 Cannes Film Festival schedule is scheduled to be announced later this week.