Cannes Film Festival Opening Ceremony Hosted By Audrey Tautou

The 66th annual Cannes Film Festival began on Wednesday with the Opening Ceremony, hosted by French actress Audrey Tautou.

Tautou wasted no time before introducing this year’s Jury President, Steven Spielberg, with a montage of his films. Spielberg was greeted with a long standing ovation from the crowd, which included Leonardo DiCaprio and Julianne Moore. When the crowd finally died down, Spielberg could only say, “Mon Dieu!”

Spielberg and Tautou introduced the remaining members of the jury before presenting a reel of clips from the twenty films in Competition. Spielberg expressed his impatience to watch the films. In his opening remarks, he said, “I certainly expect to be surprised, and I expect to be moved, and, hopefully, we all expect to be changed a little bit.”

The reel was followed by a performance of “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister),” a song from Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985), which was nominated for Best Original Song at the 1986 Oscars – just one of the film’s eleven nominations.

To finish the Opening Ceremony, the Cannes Film Festival officially began with an introduction by two of the stars from The Great Gatsby, DiCaprio and Amitabh Bachchan, or as Tautou called them, The Prince of Hollywood and the Prince of Bollywood, respectively. The two walked out to a jazzy version of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” from the film’s soundtrack, and introduced their film.

The Great Gatsby was chosen to open the festival with its European premiere, and was followed by a themed party on the harbor.