Cannes kicks off with tribute to Bertolucci

The Cannes film festival got off to a glittering start on Wednesday, paying hommage to Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci before sitting back to enjoy Midnight in Paris.

“I declare the Cannes festival open,” said Bernardo Bertolucci in Italian and French, after French actress Melanie Laurent, the evening’s master of ceremonies, invited the Italian director to do the honours and “cut the ribbon”.

Just minutes earlier, the septua-genarian wheelchair-bound Mr Bertolucci was visibly touched as he received a Palme d’Honneur for his life’s work including Last Tango in Paris and The Last Emperor.

“The surprise makes this even more important,” said Mr Bertolucci, who has never won a coveted Palme d’Or despite his respected oeuvre.

He dedicated his award to Woody Allen, “whom I can see in his seat with a strange expression I’ve never seen in his films” – Mr Allen looked poker-faced slumped in his seat – and to Robert De Niro, president of this year’s Palme d’Or jury, “a big, big friend” who starred in his epic film 1900.

Mr Allen’s latest romantic comedy Midnight in Paris opened the festival.

Mr Bertolucci then added: “And then I’d like to dedicate this honorary Palme to all Italians who still have the strength and the energy to struggle, to criticise and to be indignant.”

Mr De Niro, 67, tasked with his eight fellow jurors to pick this year’s Palme d ’Or winner from 20 films in competition, was equally moved by the screening of a brisk review of his life’s work, from Taxi Driver to Analyze This.

“Thank you for inviting me here to the 75th, er, 64th festival,” he said in respectable French in response to a standing ovation. “I hope I will do good work. Thank you.”

Billed by organisers as “a love letter” to the French capital, Midnight in Paris stars Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams – plus French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, cast in a bit part as a museum curator.

The supermodel-turned-singer skipped Wednesday’s gala for what she called “personal and professional reasons” – stirring rumours that she is pregnant with President Nicolas Sarkozy ’s child.

“She’s a singer, she plays guitar and she has a theatrical feel,” Mr Allen, 75, said after a well-received press screening. “And so she came in and did her part very gracefully.”

Crowds gathered on the pavement outside the Palais des Festivals to catch a glimpse of Hollywood stars and up-and-coming directors filing up the red carpet for the gala evening opening.

A rich galaxy of stars has descended on Cannes, with the likes of Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz – appearing in the 3D adventure caper Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – expected in town.