Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby will open the 2013 Cannes film festival, the world’s most important cinema showcase, organisers said on Tuesday.
The adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s account of Roaring Twenties America combines serious literary heritage and A-list star power, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role.
DiCaprio will make an appearance at the festival on the famous Croisette waterfront for the first time since 2007.
The opening gala, preceded by a glitzy red carpet fashion parade and followed by parties along the palm-lined Riviera, will also be attended by Amitabh Bachchan and Rapper Jay-Z.
“It is a great honour for all those who have worked on The Great Gatsby to open the Cannes film festival,” Luhrmann said in a statement. “F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside St. Raphael,” he added.
DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby in the 3D movie, Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan and Tobey Maguire is Nick Carraway, the narrator.