Jolie arrives in Cannes

Angelina Jolie and Mariane Pearl – the widow the Hollywood actress plays in her new movie – are appearing at the Cannes Film Festival today.

A Mighty Heart was inspired by the life of US journalist Daniel Pearl, who died five years ago, and stars Jolie, 31, as Pearl’s wife.

Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, died in 2002 while researching a story on British shoe bomber Richard Reid in Karachi, Pakistan.

Mariane wrote about his disappearance, the intense effort to find him and his murderer in her memoir A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl.

Mariane was six months’ pregnant when the ordeal began and she wrote the book to introduce her son to the father he would never meet.

A Mighty Heart is directed by British film-maker Michael Winterbottom.

Jolie’s boyfriend Brad Pitt is also making an appearance in Cannes for his new movie Ocean’s Thirteen.