Nicole Kidman got a second major outing in Cannes on Friday, this time playing a war correspondent who waged her own battle against Ernest Hemingway as the literary lovers roamed the world.

Much of "Hemingway and Gellhorn" deals with the trip by the U.S. writer, played by British actor Clive Owen, and the journalist to Spain during that country's brutal civil war in the late 1930s.

U.S. director Lee Daniels had some explaining to do in Cannes Thursday over a scene in his new film "The Paperboy" which sees Nicole Kidman pee on the jellyfish sting of her co-star Zac Efron.

The movie premiered on Thursday casts Kidman as a small-town vamp whose tacky sensuality proves mesmerizing to the fresh-faced youth played by Efron, a world away from his "High School Musical" debut in the Florida-set thriller.

Kanye West showed off his short film and his celebrity girlfriend in Cannes.

The rapper walked hand in hand with Kim Kardashian at the launch of "Cruel Summer" on Wednesday night.

An Iranian film noir about an academic who returns home after two decades in the West to a family and country he no longer recognizes made a splash at the Cannes festival this week.

"A Respectable Family", the feature film debut of the 39-year-old Tehran documentary maker Massoud Bakhshi, is rooted in the director's own experiences as a teenager growing up during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.

British rocker Pete Doherty, whose cocaine-snorting and carousing have landed him in jail, on Sunday appeared in his first film role in Cannes as a debauched young man in 19th-century France.

"Confession of a Child of the Century" sees Doherty star in an adaptation of French writer Alfred de Musset's autobiographical novel of the same name alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg.

A Romanian nunnery tale, a killer whale of a drama and whimsical pre-teen love jostled for Cannes glory Monday as the world's top cinema showcase hit the half-way mark.

Awful weather and a lingering sexism row made only a slight dent in the French Riviera festival's glamour that saw stars like Jessica Chastain, Bill Murray and Marion Cotillard sashay up the fabled red carpet.

Actor and activist Sean Penn urged U.S. President Barack Obama to step up his support for Haiti as he hosted a Cannes fundraiser to help the country recover from the devastating 2010 quake.

Dubbed Carnival in Cannes, the star-studded party is being held on the sides of the Riviera filmfest jointly with Italian couturier Giorgio Armani. Proceeds will go to three aid groups: Sean Penn's J/P Haitian Relief Organization, Artists for Peace and Justice, and Happy Heart's Fund.

Flamboyant British comic Sacha Baron Cohen sparked minor chaos on Cannes' fabled Croisette beachfront Wednesday as his zany alter ego General Aladeen took a morning stroll on his camel Osama.

The star of "The Dictator" ordered his mini-skirted amazonian bodyguards to point their assault rifles at the press pack outside the ritzy Carlton Hotel before he straddled his humped beast and headed for a nearby cafe.

Kooky comedy and buffoonery are on the agenda Wednesday as the 65th Cannes Film Festival, with its trademark mix of high cinematic art and Hollywood glitz, kicks off on a light note.

U.S. director Wes Anderson brings his whimsical touch with the opening film "Moonrise Kingdom", a pre-teen elopement fantasy whose star-packed cast includes Bruce Willis as a small-town cop and Bill Murray as a morose parent.

A trio of "indie Hindi" films are bringing a new Indian cinema to the Cannes Film Festival, where Bollywood stars like to spice up the red carpet but their movies seldom create a serious buzz.

Dealing with corruption and coal mafias, impotency and the porn industry, the films in this year's line-up are part of a burgeoning, alternative Bollywood that departs from commercial song-and-dance hits so popular at home.