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The Cannes film festival took a new swipe at Iran, leaving an empty seat on stage at its gala opening for jailed Iranian director Jafar Panahi.

The nine members of the Cannes festival jury headed by US director Tim Burton swept onto the stage for Wednesday’s opening ceremony, leaving one chair symbolically empty for Panahi, who had been invited to join the jury.

Earlier, Burton joined calls for the release of the jailed Iranian director.

“All of us are for freedom of expression,” Burton told a news conference at the film festival. “We fight for that every day and in our lives. So of course one should be free to express oneself.”

France, which hosts the world’s top film festival, also urged Iran on Wednesday to release the filmmaker and allow him to take his seat as a member of the Cannes jury.

“He is one of the most eminent representatives of Iranian film and his place is at the festival where he has been invited as a member of the jury,” Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said in a joint statement. They called for Panahi’s release so “he can come to the festival as soon as possible.”

Panahi, 49, has been held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since March 1, when he was arrested by Iranian authorities, reportedly because he was making a film about the disputed 2009 presidential election.

This year’s lineup at the Cannes Film Festival is leaner and less star-studded than usual, but you wouldn’t know that from the high-glamor opening ceremony.

Hollywood celebrities from Eva Longoria to Salma Hayek strutted their stuff on the red carpet for the premiere of Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood,” which opened the French Riviera’s 12-day film extravaganza.

The film’s stars, Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, electrified the throngs of spectators who lined the red carpet hoping for a celebrity glimpse. Crowe, who plays the title role in Scott’s muscular adaptation of the classic tale, sported sunglasses with his tuxedo.

Blanchett, Lady Marion in the film, donned an off-the-shoulder gown by late British designer Alexander McQueen. Emblazoned on the front and back by a silver eagle in flight, the dress was part of McQueen’s pre-fall 2010 collection.

McQueen, a British designer who was widely considered among the brightest lights of contemporary fashion, committed suicide in February at age 40.

Indian actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, wearing a frothy gown in blue-gray lace, Britain’s Helen Mirren in a black sheath and Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal filled out the ranks of the celebrities at the opening ceremony.

Still, despite its high-wattage start, the festival’s 63rd edition has fewer household names among the actors and directors to be featured here. The pared-down roster of 19 movies in competition is dominated by emerging filmmakers from Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Tim Burton played down the relative lack of big names at Cannes, saying he and his fellow jurors — including British actress Kate Beckinsale and Puerto Rico’s Benicio del Toro — were going into the competition without preconceptions.

“We don’t want to have a certain kind of thing we’re looking for,” Burton, his eyes obscured by dark shades and his hair a halo of frizz, told reporters at a news conference. “The point is to just feel the films and then discuss them and just be open.”

“We’ve all been judged, so I think we’re going into it with a certain kind of spirit of openness and hopefully compassion for any filmmaker,” said the director of “Alice in Wonderland” and “Edward Scissorhands.”

Key names among the films competing for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize, include new movies by “Amores Perros” director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Cannes best film laureates Ken Loach and Abbas Kiarostami, as well as Japan’s Takeshi Kitano.

British actress Kristen Scott Thomas presided over the opening ceremony, which included a medley of songs from Burton’s films by Melody Gardot, clips from the competition movies and the official presentation of the jury.

The media blitz around “Robin Hood” comes at a convenient time for the action-packed film, which will go head-to-head with the reigning blockbuster “Iron Man 2” when it opens in parts of Europe and the US this week.

Other big-name movies to be shown out of competition include Michael Douglas and Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps — the follow up to their 1987 hit “Wall Street” — and Woody Allen’s ensemble romance, “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” starring Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and Freida Pinto.

Only one US film will be in the running for Cannes’ top prize: director Doug Liman’s “Fair Game,” starring Watts as CIA covert operative Valerie Plame, whose identity was leaked by officials in the Bush administration.

 

Associated Press