Great Gatsby to open Cannes Film Festival

Paris - The Cannes Film Festival has an American flavour this year, with a Hollywood icon heading the jury and a quintessential US literary figure opening the event: The Great Gatsby.

Organisers said on Tuesday that the film The Great Gatsby, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role and directed by Australian Baz Luhrmann, will open this year's Cannes festival - in 3D, no less.

Luhrmann stressed the film's French connection, saying in a statement that author F Scott Fitzgerald wrote "some of the most poignant and beautiful passages" of The Great Gatsby at a French Riviera villa not far from Cannes.

Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan also star in Luhrmann's version of the 1925 novel.

Steven Spielberg is heading the jury at the Cannes festival this year, which runs 15-26 May.