Jolie, Harrison Ford, Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Robert De Niro are among the stars expected in town during the festival. Madonna and Sharon Stone are to turn up at a benefit dinner on Cannes' sidelines for the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

Other films in the running for prizes are James Gray's "Two Lovers," a romantic drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow, and Steven Soderbergh's four-and-a-half hour marathon "Che," starring Benicio Del Toro as Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Guevara.

Australian actress Cate Blanchett arrives for the screening of Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles' film entry "Blindness" on the opening night of the 61st Cannes Film Festival May 14, 2008.

Dark themes abound as usual in the competition films. Palme d'Or laureates Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who took top honors at the 1999 and 2005 festivals, are back with a gritty drama about an illegal immigrant and her sham marriage, "Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence)." Israeli writer-director Ari Folman's "Waltz With Bashir" -- an animated film -- tackles the subject of war. And Italian film "Gomorra," by director Matteo Garrone, takes on the Naples-based Camorra mob.

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