Cannes: 74th Cannes Film Festival inaugurated on Tuesday, the first fully-fledged film festival since he start of the Covid – 19 pandemic. US actor Adam Driver told to the media that Covid – 19 is still there, but being here for the return of the festival, in the opening film it’s a huge sense of relief and excitement.

Driver co-stars with French actor Marion Cotillard in the opening night film, “Annette”, a musical directed by cult favourite Leos Carax. US director Spike Lee, a black man first time headed for the members of the jury arrived Monday night and will give their traditional press conference on Tuesday afternoon, before embarking on their 24-film marathon.

We are on Minute 5 of the ANNETTE standing ovation and Adam Driver has begun smoking a cigarette pic.twitter.com/F56r0W0nGL

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) July 6, 2021

The festival palace a squat, concrete construction dubbed “the bunker” is draped in a poster featuring Lee, in oversize spectacles, peering between two palm trees. The other jury members are includes females US actor Maggie Gyllenhaal, Canadian-French singer Mylene Farmer and French-Senegalese actor Mati Diop. Other members include Tahar Rahim, star of 2009 film “A Prophet”, and South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who dazzled in the festival’s last winner two years ago, “Parasite”.

         As evening falls, stars will strut down the recycled red carpet, which has been chopped in size as part of a green makeover. American actor and director Jodie Foster is guest of honour at the opening ceremony, and will be awarded an honorary Palme d’Or before the screening of “Annette” gets underway. The film is Carax’s first since “Holy Motors” nine years ago, which also competed at Cannes. It tells the story of a celebrity couple and their mysterious child, the titular Annette.

In 2021, 24 films will compete for the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or. Festival director Thierry Fremaux has promised that the line-up “packs a punch”. The directors vying for glory include such perennial Cannes favourites as Italy’s Nanni Moretti with his new film “Tre Piani,” France’s Jacques Audiard (“Les Olympiades”) and Thailand’s master of the slow burn, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, with his English-language debut (“Memoria”).

Other contenders include Sean Penn, whose Africa-based humanitarian love story “The Last Face” bombed at Cannes in 2016; Iran’s two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi; and Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, who is barred from leaving the country due to an embezzlement conviction widely seen as punishment for his criticism of President Vladimir Putin. With just four female directors in the competition, the festival’s tendency to pick the usual (male) suspects of the arthouse elite is once again under scrutiny.