The Cannes Film Festival opens on Tuesday, with stars of world cinema from Juliette Binoche to Tom Cruise expected on the red carpet. Glitz and glamour aside, this year's event highlights the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as sexual harassment in the film industry – as one of France's most famous leading men, Gérard Depardieu, is found guilty of sexual assault.
The opening ceremony at the Palais de Festivals, to be broadcast live on Tuesday evening, will see host Laurent Lafitte bring together Juliette Binoche and her jury members, as well as Robert de Niro for his honorary Palme d’Or.
Enigmatic pop singer Mylène Farmer will perform at the opening ceremony, and there are rumours she could reveal a new song.
This will be followed by the opening film Partir un jour ("Leave One Day") – a debut feature by Amélie Bonnin, starring another French singer, Juliette Armanet.
A total of 22 films are in the running for the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, to be announced on 24 May.
Cannes Film Festival unveils diverse line-up of veteran stars and fresh talent
Focus on Ukraine
Festival organisers have made it clear that, as is customary, the event will not shy away from world tensions – as global issues directly impact filmmakers, crews and audiences.
The opening day has been dedicated to the conflict in Ukraine, with the screening of three documentaries back to back.
"This programme serves as a reminder of the Cannes Film Festival's commitment and its ability to tell the story of the world's challenges, which are those of our future, through cinema," organisers told the press this week.
Zelensky, made by Yves Jeuland, Lisa Vapné and Ariane Chemin, retraces the childhood and youth of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – from actor and comedian to head of the military, defending his country against Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Notre Guerre ("Our War") by Bernard-Henri Lévy and co-director Marc Roussel follows the Anne of Kyiv brigade, as well as gathering testimonies of civilians caught up in the conflict.
2,000 metres to Andriivka by Mstyslav Chernov and Alex Babenko shows soldiers on the front line trying to liberate a strategic village.
In the Directors’ Fortnight, the documentary Miliantropis by Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi pieces together everyday lives transformed by war – those who flee, those who have lost everything, and those who stay to fight.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa returns to Cannes, with his legal drama Two Prosecutors in competition. Set in the Soviet Union in 1937, it’s the story of a young prosecutor doing everything he can to help a victim of corrupt secret service agents.
Inside Gaza
While Israel continues to ban international media from entering Gaza, the war in the Palestinian territory will feature at the Cannes festival this year, including in a documentary whose protagonist was killed in an Israeli strike.
Fatima Hassouna, a 25-year-old Gazan photojournalist, features in Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi's documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.
An Israeli air strike killed Hassouna, along with 10 of her relatives, in her family home in Gaza on 16 April, the day after she heard the film had been selected for ACID, one of the festival's sidebar sections. Only her mother survived.
'I want a loud death': Cannes Film Festival to honour slain Gaza journalist
Gazan twin brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser will screen Once Upon a Time in Gaza, a tale of two friends peddling drugs from a falafel shop in 2007, the year Islamist group Hamas began tightening its grip on Gaza.
The film – being shown in the Un Certain Regard section – is the latest from the exiled duo to show at the festival, with several of their earlier works set in Gaza but filmed in Jordan.
Meanwhile, Israeli director Nadav Lapid, a critic of his government's policies, will be showing Yes in the Directors' Fortnight programme.
The film follows a jazz musician tasked with setting to music a new national anthem in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks.
'Endemic abuse'
The problem of sexual violence in the film industry is also expected to make waves at the festival.
Festival director Thierry Frémaux and president Iris Knobloch have made it clear that Cannes should play a key role in the fight against gender discrimination and sexual violence.
In April, French MPs criticised "endemic" abuse in the entertainment industry after a six-month inquiry.
Cannes to unveil film selection under pressure over industry abuse
A Paris court on Tuesday found actor Gérard Depardieu guilty of sexual assault on a 2021 film set, handing him an 18-month suspended sentence.
The actor, 76, was convicted of having groped a 54-year-old set dresser during the filming of Les Volets Verts (“The Green Shutters”). The panel of judges will deliver a verdict regarding another plaintiff and pronounce a sentence later on Tuesday.
The case is widely viewed as a key test of how French society and its film industry address allegations of sexual misconduct involving prominent figures, in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
The star of Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card has been accused of improper behaviour by around 20 women, but this is the first case to come to trial.
Gérard Depardieu: the rise and fall of France's global film star
(with newswires)
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