CANNES, France, May  20, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - The Hollywood cavalcade descended 
on Cannes Saturday for the premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese's 
Native American crime epic, "Killers of the Flower Moon."

The three-and-a-half-hour movie, which includes Scorsese's other long-time 
muse Robert De Niro, charts a wave of murders among the wealthy Osage Indians 
in the 1920s and the birth of the FBI.

 After hours of waiting in the rain that has drenched the French Riviera 
town all week, fans went wild as DiCaprio, De Niro, and Scorsese arrived for 
the premiere alongside several native Americans in traditional outfits.

 Jesse Plemons, who is also in the film, arrived with his wife Kirsten 
Dunst, while Salma Hayek, Cate Blanchett, and former Spiderman Tobey Maguire 
were also spotted on the red carpet.

 Another round of Hollywood royalty will arrive for Natalie Portman and 
Julianne Moore's premiere "May December," which looks at the relationship 
between an older woman and a schoolboy, still married years after their 
relationship became a tabloid scandal.

 The competition for the festival's top prize Palme d'Or is heating up.
 
An early front-runner is British director Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of 
Interest", a unique and horrifying look at the private life of a Nazi officer 
working at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

 Critics were near-unanimous in their praise, with Variety calling it 
"chilling and profound, meditative and immersive, a movie that holds human 
darkness up to the light and examines it as if under a microscope". 

 But there was also huge warmth for "Four Daughters", a heartbreaking 
documentary about radicalisation within a Tunisian family that is both 
inventive and engaging.

 That may go down well with jury president Ruben Ostlund, last year's winner 
for "Triangle of Sadness", who likes his arthouse films with some lighter 
touches.

 A total of 21 films are in the main competition, which concludes on May 27, 
including previous winners such as Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda, Germany's Wim 
Wenders and Britain's Ken Loach.
       
       - Ageing icons -
       
 The weather has been untypically wet this year, but Cannes has had no 
shortage of splashy moments since kicking off on Tuesday with the controversial 
appearance of Johnny Depp.

 In his first movie since a bitter trial with ex-wife Amber Heard, Depp 
played French king Louis XV in "Jeanne du Barry", which received middling 
reviews, and festival director Thierry Fremaux irked online critics by saying 
"I don't care" about Depp's legal woes.

 The festival also saw an emotional appearance from Harrison Ford, receiving 
an honorary Palme d'Or at the world premiere of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of 
Destiny".

 At the risk of turning this year's Cannes into a festival of ageing 
Hollywood males, there was also an honorary Palme for Michael Douglas, and an 
appearance from Sean Penn as a grizzled New York paramedic in "Black Flies". 
       
       - Italian-American icons -
       
 But all eyes were on the Scorsese film uniting three icons of 
Italian-American cinema.

 DiCaprio and De Niro are both long-time Scorsese collaborators. But the 
director has never before cast them in the same film, apart from a funny short 
in 2015, "The Audition", in which they competed for a part in his next movie.

 The film world is also painfully aware that it may be one of the last 
movies from the master behind "Goodfellas", "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver".

  In a poignant interview earlier this week, the 80-year-old Scorsese told 
Deadline: "I'm old... I want to tell stories, and there's no more time."

  "Taxi Driver" won the Palme d'Or in 1976, but he has not been back in the 
Cannes competition since 1985's lesser-known "After Hours", though he did serve 
as jury president in 1998.

"Killers of the Flower Moon", which was funded by Apple, is showing out of 
competition.