Cannes 2017 to officially start screenings today

The 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is to start today in attendance of several cinema stars from around the world.

The prestigious film festival will celebrate its 70th anniversary while security at this year's Cannes is higher than ever.

There are 19 films in contention for the coveted Palme d'Or, starring a number of international actors, including Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Pattinson, Will Smith and Jessica Chastain.

The first two days of this year’s festival will see premieres of ‘Wonderstruck’ directed by Todd Haynes, ‘Loveless’ directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev, ‘Ismael’s Ghosts’ directed by Arnaud Desplechin, and ‘Black Glasses’ directed by Claire Denis.

The event is set to continue with some hopeful works such as ‘Happy End’ by Michael Haneke, ‘The Beguiled’ by Sofia Coppola, ‘The Meyerowitz Stories’ by  Noah Baumbach, and ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ by Yorgos Lanthimos.

The last two days are scheduled to send ‘You Were Never Really Here’ directed by Lynne Ramsay, ‘Twin Peaks’ directed by David Lynch, and ‘Based on a True Story’ directed by Roman Polanski on screen.

The previous edition of the festival presented its Palme d'Or to ‘I, Daniel Blake’ directed by Ken Loach and the Grand Prix to ‘It's Only the End of the World’ by Xavier Dolan.

The Jury Prize, Best Actress and Best Director awards respectively went to Andrea Arnold for ‘American Honey’, Jaclyn Jose for ‘Ma' Rosa’, and Cristian Mungiu for ‘Graduation’ as well as Olivier Assayas for ‘Personal Shopper’.

Iran’s representative at Cannes 2016, ‘The Salesman’ was the only two-award-winner with Asghar Farhadi winning Best Screenplay award and Shahab Hosseini grabbing Best Actor award.

The 70th annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to be held May 17-28, 2017.

MG/MMF