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The French Riviera shrugged off the economic gloom to reel in a bevy of auteur directors and megastars, from Quentin Tarantino to Brad Pitt, for its annual Cannes film festival frenzy.
The notoriously extravagant event toned down the glitz for this year's crisis-era bash, but a galaxy of top-notch movie celebrities jetted in for the celebrations.
Tarantino's long-awaited war movie Inglourious Basterds was one of the 20 films vying for the Palme d'Or top prize at the film industry's biggest annual binge.
From Brokeback Mountain Oscar-winning director Ang Lee, to veteran 'new wave' icon Alain Resnais, at a ripe 86 back behind a camera, the world's grandest film-makers are competing to take home the coveted prize.
They include four previous Palme winners - Tarantino, Jane Campion, Lars Von Trier and Ken Loach - who were lined-up alongside Pedro Almodovar, Johnnie To, Marco Bellochio, Elia Suleiman, Lou Ye and Park Chan-wook.
Lee has taken a humorous look at the 1960s Woodstock festival, Suleiman offers a Palestinian family saga, while in an out-of-competition movie, Anne Aghion's My Neighbour, My Killer recounts the chilling aftermath of the Rwanda genocide.
The late Heath Ledger's unfinished stint in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, screened out of competition, also created a buzz at the festival which ends on Sunday.
The festival, which has become a showcase for respected but not necessarily commercial directors, has this year been mostly sombre in theme, with war, fascism, gore and even vampire priests filling screens over 10 days.
But it kicked off on a light note last Wednesday with a 3D animated movie for kids, Pixar's 'Up', which was also shown out of competition.
Set in the wilds of South America, the $150 million adventure was just the tip of the 3D iceberg as far as studio owner Disney is concerned, with a dozen big-budget 3D movies and six more with live-action 3D in the works.
3D, said Cannes festival president Thierry Fremaux, is 'one of cinema's upcoming adventures'.
Star power and prestige helped Cannes - which organisers say is the biggest global media event after the Olympic Games - limit the damage from the global economic slowdown compared to some mega-yachts were still anchored in the bay and palaces along the seafront booked out for A-listers like Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz and Jude Law.
