Cannes Film Festival turns 60 with Brad and Angelina

The 60th annual Cannes Film Festival will open with a line-up ranging from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to Michael Moore and Quentin Tarantino.

Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai - a long-standing Cannes favorite - opens the festival tomorrow with 'My Blueberry Nights,' his first English-language film and the acting debut of singer Norah Jones, who stars as a heartbroken waitress alongside Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Rachel Weisz.

Wong is joined by several other returning Cannes veterans - four of the 22 directors competing for the coveted Palme d'Or have won the top prize before.

Tarantino's gory 'Death Proof' is in the running, as are the Coen brothers' Rio Grande thriller 'No Country for Old Men,' Gus Van Sant's 'Paranoid Park' and 'Promise Me This,' from Sarajevo-born Emir Kusturica.

A further 13 entries are by directors who have never been in the main competition before.

Cannes President Gilles Jacob said he strove to "mix heritage and modernity, great filmmakers and startups."

Moore will not be taking home a second Palme d'Or to match the one he won for 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in 2004.

'Sicko,' his documentary taking the pulse of the U.S. health care system, is getting its world premiere in an out-of-competition slot.

But it has already generated more attention than any film in the festival, thanks to a U.S. Treasury Department investigation into a trip Moore took to Cuba - accompanied by a group of ailing September 11 rescue workers - during the making of the film.

The investigation spurred producers to spirit the negative of the film outside of the U.S. in case the government tried to seize it, said Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is releasing 'Sicko'.

"It was like a middle-of-the-night operation from a spy novel, moving your negative to another country," he said.

Between Wednesday and May 27, the red carpet on Cannes' beachfront Croisette will glitter with celebrities.

Clooney is due to promote caper threequel 'Ocean's Thirteen,' Leonardo DiCaprio brings environmental documentary 'The 11th Hour,' and celebrity super-couple Brad Pitt and Jolie are expected to be on hand - he for 'Ocean's Thirteen,' she for 'A Mighty Heart,' in which she plays the widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl.

Cannes has always been special. Founded in 1939 as an alternative to the fascist-dominated Venice Film Festival in Mussolini's Italy - and almost immediately canceled due to the outbreak of World War II - Cannes came to symbolize international glamor in the years after the war.

Grace Kelly graced the corridors of the elegant Carlton hotel, and Brigitte Bardot caused a sensation on the red carpet.