American audiences may have turned a deaf ear to “Grindhouse” when it rolled out via the Weinstein Co. in the states last month, but the international press gathered here in Cannes greeted Quentin Tarantino with applause, whistles and cheers after viewing his retooled “Death Proof,” his half of “Grindhouse,” which is playing in competition. A beaming Tarantino appeared at the official press conference accompanied by his star Kirk Russell and a quartet of the movie’s tough-talking gals — Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms, Rose McGowan and Rosario Dawson. Rodriguez and Tarantino’s patrone Harvey Weinstein hovered in the wings. The new version of the film is nearly two hours long, almost a half hour longer than it appeared in “Grindhouse.” (Here’s THR’s Kirk Honeycutt’s take on the instant remake.) But, Tarantino explained, he’s dropped in only two new scenes — a lapdance that Russell’s Stuntman Mike receives in the first half of the film and his first encounter with the girls in the second half of the film. The new cut does make it clearer that Mike is a stalker from the very beginning. And the femme-to-femme dialogue scenes run longer. That’s because, Tarantino said, when he and Tarantino sandwiched their two movies together in “Grindhouse,” “we didn’t cut our films to the bone, we cut them way past the bone.” Of the film’s new look, he added, “I actually really like the fact that if you count the minutes, it hasn’t changed dramatically, but it’s changed 180 degress in terms of the emotion.” Russell hadn’t seen the new version — Tarantino didn’t want his actors to see it until the official red carpet screening Thursday night. But the actor, a little grumpily, groused, “I’m disappointed for any audience that they won’t get the ‘Grindhouse’ experience. My prediction is that 20 years from now, you’ll want the ‘Grindhouse’ experience, you won’t see them separately.” Weinstein, though, is confident that the newly separated films will perform better abroad than they did under one banner in the U.S. Of “Death Proof’s” prospects, he promised, “It will dwarf ‘Grindhouse,” trust me.” (Gregg Kilday)