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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.

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.

One hundred and ffifty one years after General Robert E. Lee signed his surrender at Mclean House in Appomattox Virginia, millions of Americans are choosing sides and heading off to the front to support their factions in a war where, whatever happens, Disney and Marvel are the winners.

And so, after seven seasons, universal praise and a myriad of awards – including 12 Golden Globe nominations and one win, for Julianna Margulies, best actress/TV series/drama in 2010-The Good Wife comes to an end this Sunday. Sprung from the minds of writers/producers Robert King and Michelle King, The Good Wife took its cue from the series of sexual scandals that rocked the US political scene in late 00s – the very public shaming of congressman Anthony Weiner, New York state governor Eliot Spitzer and ex-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – and ran fast and loose with it.