Woody Allen's Cafe Society to kick off Cannes 2016

Woody Allen’s Cafe Society will open this year’s Cannes film festival.

Allen’s 49th film, which is screening out of competition, will be his third to kick off Cannes. Hollywood Ending began the festival in 2002, Midnight in Paris launched the 2011 event.

The film, which is set in Hollywood during the 1930s, stars Jesse Eisenberg as a screenwriter whose time in Tinseltown is defined by a new love affair and, according to a Cannes press release, “the vibrant cafe society that defined the spirit of the age”. Kristen Stewart will play opposite Eisenberg, the third time the pair have played a couple after Adventureland and American Ultra. Blake Lively and Steve Carell also star.

Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, which stars Mark Rylance as Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant, is already confirmed to be screening out of competition. Other directors rumoured to be joining Woody at Cannes this year include Jodie Foster and Pedro Almodóvar. Foster could be bringing Money Monster, a thriller about a Wall Street pundit (George Clooney) held hostage live on-air by a man who’s lost everything (played by Jack O’Connell). Almodóvar’s Julieta would be his first film to appear at Cannes with him as director since 2011’s The Skin I Live In.

Other Cannes favourites likely to return include Nicolas Winding Refn (The Neon Demon), Park Chan-Wook (The Handmaid) and Andrea Arnold (American Honey). Olivier Assayas may make a return with Personal Shopper, which also stars Stewart. The pair’s last collaboration, Clouds of Sils Maria, premiered in competition at Cannes in 2014 and won Stewart a César award for best supporting actress.

The festival’s full lineup will be officially announced in a few weeks. This year’s Palme d’Or jury will be headed by Mad Max director George Miller.

The 69th Cannes film festival will take place 11-22 May.

• This article was corrected on Tuesday 29 March 2016. We said that Spielberg’s The BFG was rumoured to appear at this year’s Cannes film festival. It has already been confirmed.