CANNES — The Cannes Film Festival opened with words of each exuberance and reverence, because the festival returned to form while keeping its political viewpoint.

“I desired to talk in regards to the unique aspect of cinema and that’s that we’re all watching together. We’re sitting in a single room together, and watching one content,” said jury president Ruben Östlund in his opening remarks. The Swedish director recalled gathering around a TV screen together with his parents as a baby, and joked that the one TV show any nation — or any family — still watches together is the Eurovision Song Contest. “All we’re doing is scrolling and alone in our rooms.”

Östlund said constant scrolling is causing people to desert critical considering to the algorithm, and that the billions of cameras on the planet have modified our behaviors. “You may have to make a standpoint if you end up watching cinema,” he said.

He’ll be watching 21 movies over the following 12 days together with his fellow jurors, including Paul Dano, Brie Larson and Julia Ducournau.

Uma Thurman took to the stage to honor Michael Douglas, who received an honorary Palme d’Or. “Unique as each a producer and an iconic movie star, this dueling legacy has indelibly marked the canon of American cinema itself. A endlessly star, and an illuminating artist,” said Thurman as she welcomed Douglas to the stage to a standing ovation.

“This implies a lot to me, because there are a whole bunch of film festivals all over the world, but there is barely one Cannes. Seventy-six years old? I’m even older than the festival,” he joked, recalling the again and again he has attended during his 50-plus years as an actor. “And after the years of COVID[-19] and this terrible war that has been happening, experiencing this festival is a reminder of what a positive world it’s…and the way film will be transcendent.”

This 12 months’s official poster features Catherine Deneuve, and she or he took to the stage to provide Douglas his award. In a poignant moment, she cited lines from Ukranian poet Lessia Oukrainka’s work, “Hope.”

“I not have either happiness or freedom. Just one hope stays in me, to return at some point to my beautiful Ukraine,” she said, expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

Deneuve’s daughter, actress Chiara Mastroianni, served as host of the evening and echoed her mother’s sentiments as she spoke of the strength of cinema. “The rationale this festival was created was and stays the exaltation of our freedom. Freedom to dare, to assume, to create,” said Mastroianni.

Douglas walked the red carpet flanked by wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and daughter Carys Douglas. The mother-daughter duo were twinning of sorts, in Elie Saab dresses, Sarah Flint shoes and Chopard jewels.

Zeta-Jones wore a flowing red silk chiffon gown, while Carys had an extended white lace dress with flower appliqués.

It was a family affair for Thurman as well, as she was accompanied by son Levon Thurman-Hawke on the red carpet. Thurman was clad in a blush satin gown and dramatic red cape from Dior, with Chopard jewels.

Saab also dressed Alessandra Ambrosio in a hooded gown, who accomplished the look with Pomellato jewels.

Juror Larson pulled her first look of the festival fresh from the Chanel resort 2024 show, sporting a high-neck, long-sleeve gold and beige dress topped with a beaded jacket. The ensemble made its debut on the runway in L.A. just last week.

Naomi Campbell wore a slinky Celine column, with Chopard jewels. Stylist Jenke Ahmed Tailly was proudly showing those seated near him within the Grand Lumiere theater photos of the supermodel on the red carpet.

“It’s simplicity, but it surely’s Old Hollywood — she’s divine,” he told WWD, noting that Campbell added white sunglasses to the ensemble halfway through the red carpet. “So chic.”