Screen stars, soirées, scandals - it's Cannes!

As A-listers gather in the south of France for the most anticipated film festival of the year so far, Jo-Ann Titmarsh sets the scene as Asteroid City lands and Indiana Jones has a final crack of the whip

- 

IT'S time to hunt down your biggest pair of sunglasses, dust off your glad rags and get to the French Riviera the most glamorous festival in the world is ready to unfurl its red carpet.

The Cannes Film Festival is a world unto itself and knows how to walk the fine line between class and crass, auteur and popcorn fodder, minimalist navel-gazing and full-blown spectacle.

The token blockbuster

Festival director Thierry Frémaux has created a heady mix so that the avantgarde experimental cinema of someone like Jean-Luc Godard (whose 20-minute Phony Wars is screening posthumously this year) can rub shoulders with more prosaic Hollywood fare, and the festival is more than happy to sate our voracious appetite for stateside glamour. Crowds have enjoyed such spectacles as tanks being driven down the Croisette (Cannes's seafront boulevard) to transport the cast of The Expendables 3 to their press conference, and last year's red, white and blue fighter jet flyover to salute the Top Gun: Maverick premiere.

This year's blockbuster is James Mangold's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, with a stellar cast including Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas and Mads Mikkelsen.

Who knows what to expect for that premiere a whip-wielding stuntman fighting off Nazis in a snakepit?

The coolest parties

Talking of Indiana Jones, the hottest ticket in town will surely be Disney's party to celebrate the film's opening night. Disney throws a great bash, usually on the Carlton Beach. It went all out when celebrating Solo, with selfies on board the Millennium Falcon flight deck and a firework extravaganza on the moonlit sea. Other hotly anticipated parties will be for Wes Anderson's Asteroid City. With so many A-listers in its cast, the film's party will surely see some of them dancing until the wee hours, probably on a sandy beach.