Cannes's power to attract Hollywood stars was once again evident when this Wednesday's festival lineup featured Robert De Niro, Quentin Tarantino, and Tom Cruise, all of whom are leading figures for various reasons. The most veteran, De Niro, who received the honorary Palme d'Or on Tuesday at the festival's opening, offered a talk led by French photographer JR, a curious choice that became clearer when JR explained that he's been working with De Niro for years on a documentary about the actor's relationship with his father, the painter Robert De Niro, who died in 1976 and whose studio his son has kept intact all these years. "I'm doing it for myself and especially for my children. I want them to know who their grandfather was," the actor explained.

Quentin Tarantino has not had enough with changing the history of cinema of the last three decades thanks to films such as Reservoir dogs (1992), Pulp fiction (1994) and Inglourious Basterds (2009): two years after releasing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he is making his debut as a writer with a novel that sets off with the same characters from the movie to expand the universe at a fast and addictive pace. Published in Catalonia by Columna and Reservoir Books a few days after its United States release, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood brings back Rick Dalton, a western film star past his prime, along with his chauffeur and stunt specialist Cliff Booth, with the menacing shadow of Charles Manson, who along with his family sought to shake the foundations of the capitalist society of the late 1960s, lurking in the background. The action of the novel takes place in 1969 in Los Angeles, a city marked by the worldwide success of the film industry, as glamorous as it is inhospitable.