Female director wins rare opening spot at Cannes

Director Emmanuelle Bercot's film Standing Tall will open this year's Cannes film festival. Photo / AP

The Cannes film festival has shunned its usual blockbuster kick-off, opening with a gritty French film that marks only the second time a female director has won the coveted first slot.

Normally reserved for flashy hits such as

Moulin Rouge

or

The Fifth Element

, the opening selection this year is

Standing Tall

, starring French icon Catherine Deneuve.

Director Emmanuelle Bercot, little known outside her native France, is the first woman to open the world's most famous film festival since Diane Kurys in 1987 with

A Man in Love

.

The pace will pick up quickly over the coming 12 days, with a number of high-octane extravaganzas, including Australian George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, China's The Assassin and Japan's Yakuza Apocalypse.

The festival has come under fire in recent years for failing to give much representation to women, and this year's top Palme d'Or competition again features only two female directors out of 19 selections. They are French actresses-turned-directors Valerie Donzelli and Maiwenn, part of a strong showing for France which has five films up for the Palme.

Women appear to be more central to other parts of the line-up this year. Legendary director Agnes Varda, who made her name during the French New Wave of the 1960s, will become the first woman awarded an honorary Palme d'Or. Oscar winner Natalie Portman will present a special screening of her directorial debut A Tale of Love and Darkness about the early years of Israel.

The jury is this year led by US indie favourites Joel and Ethan Coen, who won the Palme in 1991 for Barton Fink and the runner-up Grand Prix for Inside Llewyn Davis two years ago.

"We love Cannes and the festival. We have come here very often," Ethan Coen told France's Le Figaro newspaper.

They promised to try to confuse their jury, which includes stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Sienna Miller and Sophie Marceau. "We fully intend to give them contradictory orders, and then see what happens," Ethan joked.

They will judge a typically eclectic selection that includes Matthew McConaughey in The Sea of Trees, Michael Fassbender risking the cursed role of Macbeth, and Australian star Cate Blanchett in Carol, teaming up again with Todd Haynes who directed her Oscar-nominated turn as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. Among the highlights appearing outside the competition are Woody Allen's latest, Irrational Man, and a new Pixar animation called Inside Out.

- AAP