Il Nuovo Postiglione - Indiana Jones swings on to red carpet at Cannes

Ford has vowed this will be the last time he dons the famous fedora, and teaser images promise some classic Indy action in the streets of Tangiers and Sicily, and some supporting roles for Mads Mikkelsen and Antonio Banderas.

It is also rumoured that the 80-year-old star is de-aged for an extended flashback sequence for the new film, which is due for general release next month.

Ford is also accompanied on this adventure by British actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the brain behind award-winning shows "Fleabag" and "Killing Eve".

It is the first of the five films, which began back in 1981 with "Raiders of the Lost Ark", not to be directed by Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg passed the reins to James Mangold, known for Johnny Cash biopic "Walk The Line".

The franchise is now part of the Disney empire, who bought it along with "Star Wars" when they took over Lucasfilm in 2012.

- Penn's NYC drama -

Also premiering at the festival on Thursday is "Black Flies", an ultra-tense drama about New York paramedics starring Sean Penn, with an unlikely supporting role for ex-boxer Mike Tyson as his station chief.

There is also a rare documentary in competition from China by one of the masters of the genre, Wang Bing.

The filmmaker is known for opening up a side of everyday China that is rarely seen by outsiders, and his new, 210-minute film "Youth (Spring)" follows migrant textile workers in a city near Shanghai.

Documentaries have done well on the festival circuit recently, with "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" (Laura Poitras's film about big pharma) winning Venice last year, and "On the Adamant" (about a daycare centre for mental health patients in Paris) winning in Berlin in February.

There are 21 films competing for the top prize at Cannes -- the Palme d'Or -- including several previous winners such as Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda, Germany's Wim Wenders and two-time British winner Ken Loach.

R.Agosti--INP