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One of the great sidebars in Cannes is the Classics selection, a favorite of cinephiles and a tribute to the history of cinema and the festival. This year fans can feast their eyes on great movies from Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Féminin, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Milos Forman’s Valmont.

Roald Dahl stories have inspired groundbreaking films, both live action (Witches, Matilda) and animated  (Fantastic Mr. Fox, James and the Giant Peach).

Soko and Lily Rose Depp star in the true story of Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan, women whose dancing reverberates 100 years on. The fascinating and little known story of Loïe Fuller, a young woman who improbably left the wilds of the American frontier to become a dancer in turn-of-the-century New York and ultimately a star of the Paris opera, makes for a fascinating film story.

Director Cristi Puiu, one of the leaders of the Romanian New Wave, is in main competition for the first time at the 2016 Cannes Film Fest.   But he is not a new presence at this prestigious event.

Parties are Cannes’ unique language, and the HFPA speaks it very well – and with a purpose. On Friday, May 13, the Association threw a cocktail party at the glamorous Nikki Beach of the Carlton Hotel, on the Croisette, to benefit and honor FilmAid International.

The wattage on the marches amped up with the screening of Money Monster and the appearance of its cast on the famed red carpet. George Clooney was accompanied by the radiant Julia Roberts and Caitriona Balfe and to add to the bona fide Hollywood glamour, it helps when the director is herself a seven-time nominated, two-time winner of Golden Globes as well as a Cecil B.

The first time Jodie Foster climbed the famous steps of the Palais du Festival was in 1976  and the 13-year old actress was here for Taxi Driver : a child actress in a history making film. 40 years later Foster is back in Cannes to promote her latest directorial effort, Money Monster, a fast-paced thriller starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts shown out of competition here.

The 69th Cannes Film Festival kicked off  with Woody Allen’s Café Society which has its morning press screening in advance of the evening gala and the customary glitz of the montée des marches. The 80 year-old director, a festival favorite, climbed the red-carpeted steps of the Palais du Cinema along with his cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Kirsten Stewart, Blake Lively and Corey Stoll (Steve Carell and Parker Posey also play in the film but did not make the trip to the Croisette).

When 69th Cannes International Film Festival opens tomorrow with the gala premiere of Woody Allen’s latest, the period comedy Café Society, it will follow closely a tradition that began with its very first edition: its deep connection with the world at large, beyond the Croisette and beyond cinema itself. In 1946, when the project of an international film festival, proposed 15 years earlier by France's Minister of National Education, finally came into being, Cannes emerged from the shadows of the Second World War, offering art as succor for a deeply wounded world.

There is no question that director Garry Marshall, 81, who brought us Pretty Woman (four Golden Globe nominations in 1990, and a Globe for Best Comedy actress Julia Roberts), Runaway Bride (1999), The Princess Diaries franchise (2001-2004), Valentine's Day (2010), New Year's Eve (2011), and now Mother's Day, loves to celebrate women. He is in fact unabashed in his praise: “Women are more interesting than men,” he says.