The May 11-22 cinema extravaganza opens on Wednesday with Allen's "Cafe Society", featuring Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in a story of a young man who arrives in Hollywood during the 1930s hoping to work in the film industry.

"When we will be old we will tell our children you know I was living at a time when Woody Allen's films were coming out, and I think he's one of the greatest auteurs," festival director Thierry Fremaux told Reuters.

Although he has never been in competition, Allen is a Cannes favourite. This year will be the third time he has opened the festival, and several other familiar faces will be presenting their films in the main competition.

"This year the competition is mostly Cannes favourites, Cannes darlings," Variety critic Jay Weissberg told Reuters.

"Fremaux is someone who likes to reward his friends, he's somebody who likes to have the people he knows come back year after year after year."

The Dardenne brothers, who present "The Unknown Girl", have won the festival's highest distinction, the Palme d'Or, twice.

Ken Loach, in Cannes with "I, Daniel Blake" has won it once, while Bruno Dumont; Jim Jarmusch, who is showing two films including a documentary on Iggy Pop; Park Chan-wook; and Pedro Almodovar have all previously scooped other honours.

Jarmusch's films are two of five distributed by Amazon as the video streaming giant makes its first appearance in Cannes.

While the competition films bring much of the prestige, some of the red carpet glitz will surround some of the out of competition screenings, such as Steven Spielberg's "The BFG", based on the novel by Roald Dahl.

Oscar-winner Julia Roberts makes her Cannes debut in Jodie Foster's out-of competition film "Money Monster", alongside George Clooney.

"Twilight" star Stewart has been labelled queen of the festival by organisers as she features in "Cafe Society" as well as Olivier Assayas's "Personal Shopper", which is vying for the Palme d'Or crown.

Despite the glamour, security will be intense as France is still facing a high risk of attack.

Private security officers will control the Palais des Festivals entry points while "hundreds" of police officers will be deployed as France is still under a state of emergency after last year's Paris attacks killed 130 people.