Cannes Film Festival gets under way

Red carpet is laid outside the Palais des Festivals in Cannes in readiness for Wednesday's opening night screening of La Tete Haute (Standing Tall)

The Cannes Film Festival is getting under way in the south of France, with Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman among the notables due to attend.

Other stars, among them Cate Blanchett and Matthew McConaughey, are expected to appear during the 12-day event.

Sienna Miller and Jake Gyllenhaal will sit on a competition jury headed by sibling duo Joel and Ethan Coen.

The festival officially kicks off later with a gala screening of French drama La Tete Haute (Standing Tall).

France is well-represented in the race for the festival's top prize, making up five of the 19 Palme d'Or entries.

Yet this year's line-up has been criticised for including a number of films by European film-makers that feature both Hollywood stars and English-language dialogue.

They include Youth, from Italy's Paolo Sorrentino, which stars Sir Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel as old friends vacationing in the Alps.

French actress Sophie Marceau (left) will sit on a jury presided over by film-making brothers Joel and Ethan Coen (middle and right)

Another contentious title is The Lobster, from Greece's Yorgos Lanthimos, which was shot in Dublin and has a cast headed by Colin Farrell.

"Looking at this year's official selection, an Anglophone virus appears to be on the rampage," wrote The Guardian's Steve Rose earlier this month.

"When film-makers from France and Italy start to make movies in English, you begin to worry."

A more welcomed development this year is the festival's perceived championing of female film-makers.

La Tete Haute director Emmanuelle Bercot is only the second woman to win the coveted opening night slot since the festival began in 1946.

Director Agnes Varda, who made her name during the French New Wave of the 1960s, will become the first woman to receive an honorary Palme d'Or.

Portman, meanwhile, is presenting a special screening of her feature directorial debut, A Tale of Love and Darkness, about the early years of Israel.

Rooney Mara (left) and Cate Blanchett play women in love in Carol, directed by Todd Haynes

Hotly anticipated titles this year include a new film version of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role.

Also included in the competition line-up is Todd Haynes' Carol, in which Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara play lesbian lovers in 1950s New York.

Films screening out of competition include Woody Allen's latest, Irrational Man, and Amy, a documentary about Amy Winehouse that has been called "misleading" by the late singer's father.

Mad Max: Fury Road will also have a special screening on Thursday, the same day the latest instalment in the apocalyptic action series opens in cinemas.

The BBC's Kev Geoghegan is at the Cannes Film Festival and is filing regular updates on his reporter's diary.