Cannes: Headquarters evacuated twice pre-festival

CANNES, France — The famed Palais des Festivals of Cannes International Film Festival was evacuated twice Tuesday, in what festival organizers are calling a security drill.

At 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the day before the festival kickoff, a jarring alarm went off in loudspeakers throughout the Palais.

"Ladies and gentlemen, due to technical problems, we ask you to leave the Palais in an orderly manner," the voice over the Palais loudspeaker repeated.

Festival attendees were allowed back into the building at 4:50 p.m. and the festival press office said afterward it was a cautionary drill.

At 5:20 p.m., the alarm went off again with the same commands. This evacuation lasted only a few minutes.

Chaz Ebert, film writer and publisher of RogerEbert.com, said she has never seen the Palais evacuated, "not in 20 years" of coming to the festival.

The drills come at the festival's celebrated hub one day before Woody Allen, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg and Blake Lively kick off the 69th Cannes International Film Festival. The stars will walk down the famed red carpet into the Palais auditorium for the world premiere of Café Society, which serves as the festival's opening night.

The glamorous festival opens with a palpable sense of unease amid security concerns following the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and the March bombings in Belgium.

At a press conference last month, festival president Pierre Lescure said 500 security personnel were assigned to the festival and would be working with France's national security authorities.

"The maximum has been done" to strike a balance between security and "ensuring that the festival remains a place of freedom," Lescure said.

As Steve Pond of TheWrap.com wrote in his Cannes introductory piece: "Welcome to the new, uneasy Cannes Film Festival, where artistry and commerce have suddenly come face to face with real-world problems like terrorism."

Contributing: The Associated Press