The Cannes Film festival announced its official lineup on April 14 with a number of familiar faces and a lack of diversity.

The Lineup

It's always exciting to see the new films that will screen at the prestigious festival and the competition slate definitely has a lot to look forward to including Pedro Almodovar's latest "Julieta," Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's "The Unknown Girl" and Sean Penn's "The Last Face." Other familiar faces that will screen include Palme D'or winner Cristian Mungiu with his latest "Bacalaureat" and Xavier Dolan's "It's Only the End of the world" starring Cannes darling Marion Cotillard."

Andrea Arnold, Olivier Assayas, Paul Verhoeven, Cristi Puiu, Jeff Nichols, Ken Loach, Park Chan-Wook, Jim Jarmusch and Alain Guiraudie are also returning to the croisette.

Meanwhile, Steven Spielberg and Jody Foster will screen their latest efforts outside the competition in special screenings.

However, the one thing most will notice from this list is the lack of diversity.

Diversity Issues

For years Cannes has been plagued with the lack of women filmmakers in the competition slate and this year is no exception. With 20 films competing this year, only three films are by women. That is only 15 percent of the films and if one takes a look at the Un Certain Regard, special screenings, out of competition and midnight screenings, only 14 percent are films made by women.

The women representing in the competition slate are Andrea Arnold with her film "American Honey," Nicole Garcia with her film "Mal de Pierres" and Maren Ade with her film "Toni Erdmann." Ade's film also represents the first German film to compete for the Palme D'Or since 2008.

And if the lack of women continues to be an issue, the competition slate saw 17 films out of Europe and the USA. Only one film represented Latin America and two films represented Asia. There was nothing from Africa or Australia. And finally 80 percent of the films were made up of whites.

This is something that is likely to be a huge criticism at Cannes especially after the Oscars were called out on it. But this time it is a bigger issue given how Global the Cannes Film Festival is and how important it is to the international film world.

Perhaps the diversity will be seen in the following sidebars Directors Fortnight or Critics week but the competition slate is the one most people are paying attention to and the one that will have the most impact on a global level.

Star Studded

Cannes has never been shy of bringing star studded films to the forefront and this year is no exception. Kristen Stewart will headline two films including the opening night film by Woody Allen "Café Society" which also stars Jesse Eisenberg and the competition film "Personal Shopper" by Olivier Assayas.

Marion Cotillard returns to the croisette for competition films "It's Only the End of the World" by Xavier Dolan and "Mal de Pierres" by Nicole Garcia.

Shia Labeof will be present for Andrea Arnold's "American Honey" and Adam Driver will also be part of the lineup with his new film "Paterson by Jim Jarmusch.

Joel Edgerton and Michael Shannon will also headline Jeff Nichol's "Loving and Sean Penn's film "The Last Face" will star Javier Bardem and Charlize Theron. Elle Fanning will also be at the festival with her new film "The Neon Demon" by Nicolas Winding Refn.