Cannes film festival: a week of premieres and parties

Actor Abbie Cornish (left) and director Jane Campion at the Cannes film festival premiere of Bright Star at the Grand Théâtre Lumiere. The love story of John Keats and muse Fanny Brawne had critics swooning and straight away became a frontrunner for the Palme d'Or – Campion's second if she nabs it Photograph: Mike Marsland/WireImage.com

An Essex girl became the talk of the festival when Katie Jarvis burst on screen in Fish Tank. She couldn't attend the festival, having only given birth the week before, but fellow actor Kierston Wareing and director Andrea Arnold filled the press in on her extraordinary story Photograph: Lionel Cironneau/AP

Rossy de Palma, Pedro Almodóvar and Penélope Cruz arrive for the premiere of Broken Embraces. Almodóvar is a Cannes favourite but has never got his hands on the Palme d'Or Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

Director Ken Loach hams it up with actors Gerard Kearns and John Henshaw at the premiere of Looking for Eric at the Palais des Festivals. Loach told the world's press he decided to make the gentle comedy because he wanted to 'do a film with a smile on our faces'. He also got to indulge his other passion, football ... Photograph: Francois Durand/Getty Images

... with the casting of Gallic footballing legend Eric Cantona, seen here with his wife Rachida Brakni, at the Cannes premiere of Looking for Eric. In the film, Cantona got to display his talent on the trumpet with a rendition of the Marseillaise Photograph: James McCauley/Rex Features

Emile Hirsch and Ang Lee at the Taking Woodstock afterparty at the Majestic Beach in Cannes. Lee's sweetnatured film of the origins of the flower-power concert didn't exactly have the critics raving Photograph: Nick Wall/WireImage.com

Jury members Asia Argento, Isabelle Huppert and Robin Wright Penn at the Palais des Festivals for the premiere of Marco Mellocchio's Vincere – 12th film out of a competition lineup of 20 Photograph: Francois Durand/Getty Images

Brad Pitt signs autographs after the press conference for Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino's attempt at a second Palme d'Or met with a decidedly mixed reception Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images

All scrubbed up, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt attend the Inglourious Basterds premiere Photograph: Eric Ryan/Getty Images

Cannes film festival president Gilles Jacob at the premiere of Spring Fever. Despite fears that the recession would have a knock-on effect on the festival, all appears to be well ... Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters

... witness the yachts moored adjacent to the Palais des Festivals at the 2009 Cannes film festival Photograph: Eric Ryan/Getty Images

Director Lars von Trier shares a joke with his Antichrist actors Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Von Trier's film reliably stirred the hornets' nest of controversy, with its uncompromising scenes of violent sex, genital mutilation and breathtaking brutality Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters

Francis Ford Coppola signs autographs after a Cannes press conference for Tetro, which opened the Director's Fortnight strand of the festival. A black-and-white semi-autobiographical film, Coppola said it was his most personal work yet Photograph: Caroline Blumberg/EPA

Martin Scorsese at a photocall for The Red Shoes. The director was at the 62nd Cannes film festival to present a restored version of the 61-year-old Powell and Pressburger masterpiece, the film that he had fallen in love with at the age of nine Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Actor Chen Sicheng and director Lou Ye at a photocall at the Palais des Festivals for Spring Fever, a Chinese Brokeback Mountain shot entirely under the radar and in defiance of a film-making ban imposed on Lou for premiering his last film at Cannes without official permission Photograph: Dominique Charriau/WireImage.com

Director Jacques Audiard (centre) with cast members Tahar Rahim (left) and Niels Arestrup (right) at the premiere of A Prophet (Un Prophéte). The mobster thriller confirmed the film-maker behind Read My Lips and The Beat That My Heart Skipped as 'the biggest beast in new French cinema'. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

Sun, sea and sand meet snow at the Cannes film festival in this photocall for Disney's 3D A Christmas Carol Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Palme d'Or contender Johnnie To and his Vengeance actor Johnny Hallyday chat after To is made an officer in the Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres at the 62nd Cannes film festival. To is one of a phalanx of Asian directors in competition Photograph: Christian Hartmann/Reuters

Willem Dafoe and wife Giada Colagrande at the premiere of Marco Bellocchio's Vincere at the Palais des Festivals Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

French actor Juliette Binoche at the premiere of Bright Star at the Cannes film festival Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA