Global stars, the Arab Spring and remembering Marilyn Monroe at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival

The 65th Cannes Film Festival opens this evening in the south of France and goes on until the 27 May. International politics will hit the screens this year with at least two films on the Arab Spring. There are stars who have crossed borders and even languages. And there are memories of Marilyn.

Reuters/Eric Gaillard

Twenty-two films are in the running for the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) award.

They include three films by French directors Jacques Audiard, Leo Carax and the veteran, at 80-years-old, Alain Resnais.

• Seventeen films compete in the Un Certain Regard section, which sets out to showcase new or young talent;
• Palme d'Or-winner Nanni Moretti from Italy chairs the nine-member jury;
• British actor-director Tim Roth heads the jury for Un Certain Regard.

In films in competition from Austrian Michael Haneke, or Canadian David Cronenburg, French stars with established international film careers, like Isabelle Huppert or Juliette Binoche cross national boundaries in the spirit of the festival.

And, while Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami ventures to Japan, Austrian director Ulrich Seidl takes off to Kenya.

Several films vying for the Palme, such asBrazilian Walter Salles' screen adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel On the Road. have a US angle, with either the director or actors or stories set in the US. 

And world politics are represented by After the Battle by Egypt's Yousry Nasrallah, which is about the Arab Spring. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy shows an out-of-competition documentary on the war in Libya.

The festival opens this evening with the rising French star Bérénice Béjo from The Artist as host.

Film-wise its US director Wes Anderson’s film Moonrise Kingdom, setting the tone with what promises to be an adult fairy tale of two children falling in love and eloping in a bucolic setting.

And an important sidebar, Hollywood legendary actress Marilyn Monroe, who never actually attended the Cannes Fillm Festival when she was alive, is very much present in this 50th anniversary year of her death.

The golden-haired screen goddess is the face of this year's festival, immortalised this time as she blows out a candle on her 30th birthday on the festival poster. For its 65th birthday.