Almodovar to open Cannes festival

Almodovar's film is about Catholic school pupils in Spain

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's latest release will open the Cannes Film Festival in May.

La Mala Educacion (Bad Education) will become the first Spanish film to kick off the event, organisers have said.

Almodovar said the honour of opening the festival made him "feel more like a teenager than an adult".

The Spaniard won best director at Cannes in 1999 for All About My Mother, and was awarded the best screenplay Oscar for Talk To Her last year.

"Opening the Cannes festival marks the peak of the honeymoon that I've been living with the French public for years," Almodovar said.

Bad Education, now in post-production, tells of two boys and a priest in a Roman Catholic school in Spain in the 1960s, who are then reunited about a decade later.

The film will kick off the 57th annual festival on 12 May, but it is not yet clear whether it will be in competition for the Palme d'Or.

Director Quentin Tarantino heads this year's jury.