The musical drama Annette, starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver, is set for its world premiere on the French Riviera as the Cannes Film Festival makes a glitzy in-person return after a pandemic hiatus.
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Yet given the varying coronavirus precautions and travel requirements still in place around the world, it was unclear how many of the film's international contingent would make it to the red carpet on Tuesday .
Cannes, considered the premier film festival, could not take place in 2020.
This year's 74th edition was pushed back from May to July, in order to give more time for the health situation to improve.
A slew of hygiene and safety protocols have been put in place, including mandatory mask-wearing inside cinemas at all times.
Director Leos Carax's Annette is the first of 24 entries showing in the two-week festival's competition this year. The Palme d'Or for best picture will handed out on July 17.
Australia has one entry, director Justin Kurzel's controversial film Nitram - about the events leading up to the Port Arthur massacre, the 1996 mass shooting in which 35 people were killed.
The film has been criticised by survivors, while Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he is unnerved about revisiting the Martin Bryant case.
Bryant is serving a life sentence without parole for the shooting, which prompted gun reform and a firearm buy-back scheme under John Howard's government.
The feature, Bryant's first name backwards, was made by Kurzel and writer Shaun Grant, the pair behind True History of the Kelly Gang and Snowtown.
Cannes has selected four women filmmakers to join the battle for the Palme d'Or, including three from France: Mia Hansen-Love, Catherine Corsini and Julia Ducournau. Hungary's Ildiko Enyedi rounds out the group.
Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov's Petrov's Flu, developed during his house arrest between 2017 and 2019, has also being given a slot in the main competition.
Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi also returns to Cannes this year to carry the flag for Iran with A Hero.
Other highlights include Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, set at an American newspaper's office in France, Sean Penn's coming-of-age drama Flag Day, and Paul Verhoeven's Benedetta, about a lesbian nun in the 15th century.
US Oscar-winning director Spike Lee heads up this year's jury - the first black person to be given the distinction.
Australian Associated Press
