Well-known directors such as David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodovar, Peter Greenaway and Tim Robbins will be among those hoping for glory on the French Riviera.

Lynch, the US director whose Wild at Heart won the 1990 Palme d'Or at Cannes, is trying this year with The Straight Story, one of four American films in the competition.

The celebrated Spanish director Almodovar is at Cannes for the first time showing Todo Sobre Mi Madre (All About My Mother).

Jarmusch is showing Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Robbins will be showing The Cradle Will Rock.

The two British films in competition are Peter Greenaway's Eight And a Half Women and Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland.

The festival will be opened by The Barber of Siberia by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov and closed by Oliver Parker's An Ideal Husband starring Cate Blanchett, Rupert Everett and Minnie Driver.

Glamour on the Riviera

Legions of celebrities are expected to attend including Sean Connery who stars in Entrapment, one of the films being shown out of competition.

Faye Dunaway is expected to fly in for a retrospective screening of Bonnie And Clyde, while the late Stanley Kubrick's version of Lolita will be another classic tribute screening.

Other actors likely to attend are Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sarandon, Bill Murray, Emily Watson, Vanessa Redgrave, Jeremy Irons, Peter Fonda, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Sissy Spacek and John Malkovich.

The festival runs from 12 - 23 May and the opening and closing ceremonies will be presented by the the English actress Kristin Scott Thomas.

Competition films in the festival

• Rosetta, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Belgium
• 8 1/2 Women, Peter Greenaway, Britain
• Wonderland, Michael Winterbottom, Britain
• Felicia's Journey, Atom Egoyan, Canada
• The Emperor and the Assassin, Chen Kaige, China
• Pola X, Leos Carax, France
• L'Humanite, Bruno Dumont, France
• Le Temps Retrouve, Raoul Ruiz, France
• Nos Vies Heureuses, Jacques Maillot, France
• Love Will Tear Us Apart, Yu Lik Wai, Hong Kong
• The Tales of Kish, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfaz Djalili and Nasser Taghvai, Iran
• Kadosh, Amos Gitai, Israel
• La Balia," Marco Bellochio, Italy
• The Summer of Kikujiro, Takeshi Kitano, Japan
• No One Writes to the Colonel, Arturo Ripstein, Mexico
• A Carta, Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal
• Moloch, Alexander Sokourov, Russia and Germany
• All About My Mother, Pedro Almodovar, Spain
• Ghost Dog, the Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch, US
• The Cradle Will Rock, Tim Robbins, US
• Limbo, John Sayles, US
• The Straight Story, David Lynch, US