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By this stage Cannes 2016, like most of its predecessors, has settled into a routine - a fine balance between art, commerce, gossip and controversy. The market, which started even before the opening night of the competition, is buzzing- this is where film projects hope to raise funds and find distributors.

Back in Cannes like she had done so many times before - all the way back to 1976 and Taxi Driver - Jodie Foster took the Palais by storm with her latest directorial project, Money Monster. Screening out of competition, the engaging, politically aware thriller - much in the vein of Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon, per Foster's own take- brought the usually jaded gala audience to their feet with several minutes of warm applause.

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.

Veterans of the Croisette say that there's only one thing that never fails in Cannes: the rain. The choices are: rain on opening day (and the next four days) or rain in the closing day (and the previous four days).

The opening film for the Cannes 2016 International Film Festival is Woody Allen’s Café Society. Amazon also commissioned an original series from Allen – his first foray into episodic fiction.

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).

Security is tighter than ever, the red carpet is in place, the jury has arrived. Like so many migrating birds, thousands of journalists, photographers, executives, producers, directors, sales agents and stars ranging from A to Z-lists flock to the once-sedate town in the South of France for ten days of films, deals and parties in a yearly ritual that reverberates around the world - and all the way through the end of the year, when the final fate of many of these characters will be revealed during awards season.

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.

Understated elegance. We’ve grown accustomed to stars donning designer duds that sparkle and shine.