Gatsby opens Cannes festival
No British films in competition as Leonardo diCaprio heads up the red carpet
CANNES Film Festival opens today with Leonardo diCaprio and Carey Mulligan walking up the red carpet for the opening with Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.
Based on the novel by F Scott Fitzgerald, who spent much of the 1920s on the Côte d’Azur, it is the first of more than 4,600 films which will be shown over the 12-day festival which ends on May 26.
There are 20 films in competition, but no British films, and this year’s titles tend towards more intimate stories rather than grand themes.
They include Inside Llewyn Davis by the Coen brothers, Behind the Candelabra on Liberace by Steven Soderbergh, Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, Roman Polanski’s La Vénus à la Fourrure ( Venus in Fur), Alexander Payne's Nebraska, Marion Cotillard in James Gray’s The Immigrant and Tilda Swinton in Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch.
Legendary director Steven Spielberg presides over the jury with Nicole Kidman, Daniel Auteuil, Christoph Waltz, Ang Lee, Cristian Mungiu, Naomi Kawase, Lynne Ramsay and Bollywood star Vidya Balan. The members met up for the first time on Tuesday evening for a dinner together.
Audrey Tautou will present the festival opening and closing ceremonies at the Palais des Festivals.
