It could be rather hectic on the famed Cannes red carpet this month with a slew of leading stars lining up for the annual glamour offensive at the world's biggest film festival.

It could be rather hectic on the famed Cannes red carpet this month with a slew of leading stars lining up for the annual glamour offensive at the world's biggest film festival.

Helping to boost the star voltage at the 12-day movie showcase will be Brad Pitt, partner Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and Johnny Depp as the festival rolled out new films by Jodie Foster, Lars von Trier, Aki Kaurismaki and Woody Allen.

Indeed, with A-list stars, gala movie premieres, high fashion, dazzling parties and yachts bobbing on a glistening Mediterranean, the Cannes film extravaganza is also one of the world's greatest events.

"This is the cinematic Olympics," US director Quentin Tarantino once declared.

"If you've done a movie you're proud of, then to me the dream is not necessarily to be there at Oscar time. That's wonderful. But my dream is to always go to present the film at Cannes."

The line-up of films at what is the 64th Cannes includes tales about the pope's therapist, a Nazi-hunting ageing rock star, a mother whose child goes on a school shooting spree, a wedding as the world faces a cataclysmic end as well as a 3D Samurai movie.

Pitt and Penn headline as father and son in US director Terrence Malick's much-anticipated The Tree of Life, which traces the story of a young Texan's journey to adulthood in the 1950s.

Oscar-winner Penn also dons red lipstick, heavy black eye make-up and a wig to transform himself into a 1980s rock star trying to track down the Nazi guard who brutalised his father in Italian-born Paolo Sorrentino's This Must be the Place.

Meanwhile, Depp will be on hand in Cannes for the world premiere of the fourth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. US director Rob Marshall's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides also stars Penelope Cruz.

France's first lady Carla Bruni has a cameo role in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Midnight in Paris, which is to open the festival next Wednesday.

This means the opening night could become something of a French state affair if Bruni and her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, grace the Croisette, Cannes' beachside boulevard.

But with a presidential election looming, the talk at the festival is that it might not be the right political moment for the Sarkozys to be seen at such a lavish event.

Besides, the festival has also decided to screen French director Xavier Durringer's La Conquete, which lampoons Sarkozy and his rise to power. Both La Conquete and Midnight in Paris are not included in the festival's main competition.

It also remains unclear if troubled Hollywood star Mel Gibson will make an appearance at the event. Gibson plays a depressed man in Jodie Foster's quirky new movie The Beaver. The film screens out of competition.