2016 Cannes International Film Festival

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.

Amazon Studios – the film production and distribution division of the digital retail behemoth is a big player in Cannes this year. There are five Amazon films here this year: Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, The Handmaiden by Park Chan-Wook, two films by Jim Jarmush: Paterson and the Stooges documentary Gimme Danger plus, of course the opening film, Woody Allen’s Café Society.

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.

A generous selection of 20 titles (against last year’s 19 and 2014’s 18) with a mix of festival perennials, first-timers and exciting segues by recent buzz-worthy filmmakers sets the tone for this year’s Cannes International Film Festival.  The announcement of the 2016 edition of the event – its 69th- was made this morning in Paris by festival delegate general Thierry Fremaux and festival president Pierre Lescure.