Cannes - A 3-D comedy about an old man who ties balloons to his house in the hope of fulfilling a boyhood dream of flying to South America becomes on Wednesday the first animated movie to open the Cannes Film Festival.

But apart from celebrating innovation in movie making, Up from US director Pete Docter might offer some light relief in a programme, which tilts towards a heavy dose of horror and violence at the world's greatest film festival this year.

This includes American Quentin Tarantino's ultra-violent Inglourious Basterds (Eds: correct spelling) about a group of bloodthirsty Nazi hunters and Korean Park Chan Wook's priest-turned-vampire film Bak-Jwi (Thirst), which has already been racing up the movie charts in his home country.

Maverick Danish director Lars von Trier also raises the horror notch at Cannes this year with his Antichrist in which Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg find themselves confronting both their own inner fears and some dark forces in a deserted cabin in the woods.

The chill factor is also expected to be high in Austrian director Michael Haneke's Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon) about a series of strange accidents that help to chart the rise of Nazism in rural pre-World War I Germany.

Meanwhile, a man bent on avenging the death of his daughter in Hong Kong director Jonnie To's Vengeance is also screening in Cannes' 20 movie-strong race for top honours, the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or.

Seven years after shaking up a storm in Cannes with his story of rape in Irreversible, France's Gaspar Noe is back at the festival with Enter the Void about a brutal murder.

But then, the festival's main programme's high violence quota might also help to act as a form of escapism from the current uncertain economic times, which are also expected to make their presence felt in Cannes this year.

Indeed, when the global movie business turns up at the legendary Cote d'Azur resort it is likely to find the 12-day movie marathon rather short of its normal round of high-voltage glamour and glitz.

With the economic crisis having cut a swathe through the world film industry over the last year, filmmakers from Hollywood through to Bollywood have faced cost-cutting, studio layoffs and an ever more cautious army of producers and movie financiers.

Already signs have emerged that the motion picture business has scaled back plans for the lavish parties and extravagant promotional events that have always been a feature of the festival.

Hollywood's traditional glamour offensive in Cannes might also be rather muted this year as the US movie industry has tightened its belt and a comparatively small number of American films have been selected for the festival.

That said, however, a cache of stars is heading to the French Mediterranean town and its famous beachfront for gala screenings of their latest movies.

It is also a sign that whatever the economic climate Cannes is still likely to celebrate movie-making and the cult of the celebrity this year with considerable style and flair.

A-listers in Cannes this year are likely to include Penelope Cruz, Gerard Depardieu, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt.

The gentler side of this year's Cannes program includes Spain's Pedro Almodovar's Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) and New Zealand-born Jane Campion's Bright Star with Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish as John Keats and his lover Fanny Brawne. Campion became the first woman director to win the Palme d'Or for The Piano in 1993.

Oscar-winning Almodovar's drama set in the wake of the death of a movie producer forms part of an impressive contingent of European movies that have been lined up for the festival.

This also includes veteran Italian director Marco Bellocchio's Vincere about what it was like to be Mussolini's wife.

Social realism over the coming days at Cannes is likely to come from British director Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank about a teenager facing up to a parent's new lover and France's Jacques Audiard, Un Prophete (A Prophet).

Audiard's movie is about a young man's coming of age in a prison ruled by a Corsican gang leader.

Marking out the growing international interest in Palestinian cinema, Nazareth-born director Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains has also been selected for the main competition. The film looks at the life of a Palestinian family over about seven decades.

A large slew of Asian movies are also to screen in this year's festival, such as Chun Feng Chen Zui De Ye Wan (Spring Fever) by Chinese director Lou Ye about an erotic threesome and from the Philippines Brillante Medoza's Kinatay which tells the tale of gang of hit men.