Kidman and other stars will ascend the famous red carpet tonight to the cinema inside the Palais des Festivals et des Congres for the glittering opening event under the watchful eye of the world's media, which has staked out viewing spots and parked stepladders for photographers days in advance.

It is a huge draw for the industry and public alike, with an estimated 127,000 visitors expected, plus 30,000 accredited professionals, 4,000 journalists and 700 technicians, according to a periodical distributed by the festival.

Last year some of those who attended the festival were less than welcome, having made off with jewels worth several million dollars.

The security presence this year is conspicuous, with dark-jacketed men standing outside or immediately inside fancy boutiques.

Even if Cannes remains the one event on the crowded film festival calendar that the big players most want to attend, a senior editor at US entertainment magazine Variety said it was scaling back.

"You see Cannes scaling back. And you see it ... for Cannes, for Cannes standards it's a little smaller than Cannes usually is," Ramin Setoodeh said.

"That said, it's still a very big festival, you have stars from Nicole Kidman to Robert Pattinson, to Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling had his directorial debut here at Cannes. So it's still a pretty big festival, it's just not as big as Cannes has always been."

5月12日晚上妮可•基德曼来到戛纳，宣传她出演的新电影《摩洛哥王妃》。我们见到她时，有点困惑不解。

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