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Pixar’s 3D film Up opened the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. It was the first time an animation has launched the event.

Celebrities swapped their Chanel sunglasses for 3D specs to watch the film, which is about a curmudgeonly man who ties balloons to his house in an attempt to become airborne.

Celebrities attending the premiere’s red carpet include Tilda Swinton and Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

Before the premiere, French actress Isabelle Huppert – president of this year’s international jury – introduced her fellow jurors to the audience. “I don’t think we are here to judge,” she said, “I think we are here to love films, and to see what we love more than others.”

There are 20 directors in the running to win the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, including Quentin Tarantino, whose Second World War saga Inglorious Basterds stars Brad Pitt, Samuel L Jackson and Mike Myers.

Ken Loach’s Looking For Eric, about former Manchester United Footballer Eric Cantona, is one of three films representing Britain in the competition.

The others are Bright Star, a period drama about poet John Keats, and Fish Tank, a domestic drama from director Andrea Arnold. The lead role in Fish Tank is played by 17-year-old Katie Jarvis, who was cast after being spotted arguing with her boyfriend in Tilbury station in Essex.

Aside from the competition, Terry Gilliam will be premiering The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, which Heath Ledger was shooting at the time of his death.

The film has been completed by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law, who share the Ledger’s parts between them.

Return to 2009's Cannes Film Festival special