Hollywood stars jetted into Cannes on Tuesday as the world's most famous film festival gets under way in dramatic circumstances, including a fugitive director's daring escape from Iran and a looming cloud of fresh #MeToo allegations.
The festival officially kicks off in the evening with an honorary award for Meryl Streep - just one of a host of international A-listers flocking to the sun-drenched Côte d'Azur, where legendary directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola also top the VIP guest list.
Coppola's decades-in-the-making epic Megalopolis, an Ancient Rome-inspired saga set in a corrupt modern-day city, is the most anticipated of this year's entries for the top prize Palme d'Or.
"Cannes is important to him and he is important to Cannes. He comes as an artist," said festival head Thierry Frémaux, praising the 85-year-old director of The Godfather.
Megalopolis is one of 22 films competing for the affections of a jury led by Barbie director Greta Gerwig.
Richard Gere will star in Paul Schrader's Oh Canada, recent Oscar winner Emma Stone reunites with Yorgos Lanthimos in Kinds of Kindness - produced by the Dublin-based Element Pictures and one of a number of films of Irish interest - and Demi Moore tries her hand at horror in The Substance.
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Outside the race for the Palme d'Or, George Miller's latest Mad Max instalment, Furiosa, will get its world premiere on Wednesday while Kevin Costner returns to the Western genre with Horizon: An American Saga.
But darker, off-screen plotlines have emerged on the eve of the festival's 77th edition.
In a last-minute twist, director Mohammad Rasoulof - also competing for the Palme d'Or - announced on Monday he had escaped in secret from Iran, just days after being sentenced to eight years in prison on security offences.
Rasoulof had been under pressure from Iranian authorities to withdraw his latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, from Cannes.
"I am grateful to my friends, acquaintances, and people who kindly, selflessly, and sometimes by risking their lives, helped me get out of the border and reach a safe place on the difficult and long path of this journey," he wrote on Instagram.
Rasoulof's lawyer Babak Paknia told AFP that the director plans to attend the festival for the premiere next week.
Meanwhile, France's film industry is in the midst of a belated #MeToo reckoning, with a string of accusations against its biggest star, Gérard Depardieu, and rumours in the run-up to Cannes of more accusations to come against high-profile figures.
Depardieu has denied all allegations.
Actress Judith Godrèche, who has accused two directors of assaulting her when she was a teenager, is presenting a short film, Moi Aussi (Me Too), aimed at encouraging more women to come forward.
Camille Cottin, star of the hit television series Call My Agent! and an outspoken feminist, will host this year's festival.
She said there were a lot of issues she would like to address in her opening speech.
"But it's also supposed to be a festive moment... and I've only got four minutes," she told AFP.
Adding to the off-screen drama, a group of festival employees have called for a strike over pay and conditions that could cause disruption at the event.
Festival head Frémaux insisted the focus this year will be squarely on the movies.
"No controversies come from the festival," he told reporters. "We have taken care to ensure the main reason we're all here is cinema."
Among the other entries for the Palme d'Or is the Irish-produced The Apprentice - a biopic of Donald Trump's formative years from Iranian-born director Ali Abbasi. It stars Sebastian Stan, known for playing the Winter Soldier in Marvel films.
Emilia Perez has quite the synopsis: a musical about a Mexican cartel boss undergoing a sex change to escape the authorities, directed by France's own Palme d'Or winner Jacques Audiard. Pop superstar Selena Gomez appears in a supporting role.
But the hot ticket is undoubtedly Coppola's Megalopolis, starring Adam Driver, on Thursday.
There is growing anticipation over whether the veteran director - who self-funded the lavish epic - can match his masterpieces of the 1970s, when he twice won the Palme d'Or for Apocalypse Now and The Conversation.
Film fans are also excited for new works from body-horror maestro David Cronenberg (The Shrouds), Italy's Paolo Sorrentino (Parthenope), and Oliver Stone (Lula, a documentary about Brazil's president).
Playing out of competition is She's Got No Name, one of China's biggest-ever productions, which features megastar Ziyi Zhang tackling the highly sensitive topic of women's rights.
Legendary Japanese animators Studio Ghibli - the makers of Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, and Howl's Moving Castle - will receive an honorary Palme d'Or, the first offered to a group.
The festival will round off on 25 May with a final honorary award for Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Source: AFP
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