Cannes film festival 2009 opens with Pixar's Up

14 May 2009: The 62nd Cannes film festival got off to a buoyant start last night with Pixar's Up, the first animated feature ever to open the venerable event. Some of the film's cast and crew, including executive producer John Lasseter (far left) and director Pete Docter (seated left), made sure the audience knew which was was Up Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

US actor and jury member Robin Wright Penn arrives at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Cannes film festival. She has big boots to fill – her husband, Sean Penn, was president of the jury last year Photograph: Antonin Thuillier/AFP/Getty Images

French actor, jury president and Cannes fixture Isabelle Huppert at the opening ceremony of the 2009 Cannes film festival. Huppert is only the fourth woman to head the judging panel in the festival's six decades Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

The jury panel for the 62nd Cannes film festival: (from left) British novelist and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, Indian actor Sharmila Tagore, Taiwanese actor Shu Qi, French actor and jury president Isabelle Huppert, South Korean director Lee Chang-Dong, US actor Robin Wright Penn, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, US director James Gray and Italian actor Asia Argento Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

Jury member James Gray at the opening of the 2009 Cannes film festival. Gray – whose last three films The Yards, We Own the Night and Two Lovers were all nominated for the Palme d'Or – and his colleagues will have to decide which of the 20 auteurs in this year's competition lineup get the coveted prize Photograph: Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP/Getty Images

Ballerinas on the red carpet at the premiere of Pixar's Up at the 62nd Cannes film festival Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Veteran French director Agnès Varda bumps into actor Tilda Swinton at the opening ceremony of the 2009 Cannes film festival. Varda, whose Rive Gauche colleague Alain Resnais is in competition this year, was herself nominated for a Palme d'Or in 1962, for Cléo de 5 à 7 Photograph: Dominique Charriau/WireImage.com

Jury member and Italian actor and director Asia Argento at the opening of the 2009 Cannes film festival. The daughter of giallo flick king Dario Argento, she might be forgiven for having less than happy memories of Cannes: Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which premiered at the 2006 Cannes film festival and in which she starred, was greeted with resounding boos Photograph: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images

Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele, co-president of jewellers Chopard. The company has manufactured the graceful Palme d'Or award since 1998 Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

French director Claude Lelouch at the opening of the Cannes film festival. Lelouch won the Palme d'Or in 1966 for A Man and a Woman, tying with Pietro Germi's Signore & Signori Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

Veteran French actor Jean Rochefort and his country's culture minister Christine Albanel arrive for the opening ceremony of the 62nd Cannes film festival Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images