Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, long-time collaborators of director Pedro Almodovar, turned up the glamour on the red carpet at Cannes on Friday for the Spaniard's latest outing, a contender for the top prize at the film festival.

Wearing a vintage-style white lace and navy dress, with a circle skirt, Cruz headed up the Croisette's famed steps for the international premiere of "Pain And Glory", alongside Banderas and the filmmaker, who was decked out in an all-black ensemble and sunglasses.

The autobiographical tale stars Banderas as Almodovar's tormented alter ego - a film director looking back at his childhood and past romances, and reflecting on his life's work - while Cruz plays his mother at the time of his youth.

Director Pedro Almodovar (left), actors Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas pose in Cannes. Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

"There's a lot of me in the movie. But as soon as you start writing, fiction takes over," Almodovar, who headed up the jury at Cannes' cinema showcase in 2017, told Canal+ TV on his way into the screening.

The film, well-received by critics, has already premiered in Spain.

Almodovar's movies helped propel the acting duo to global stardom. The director, meanwhile, has won two Oscars - with "All About My Mother" awarded the best foreign language film in 2000, and for the best original screenplay with "Talk to Her" in 2003 - but never the top Palme D'Or at Cannes.

The Cannes Film Festival runs until May 25.

Actress Eva Longoria said restrictive abortion laws passed in Alabama and Missouri are a threat to women, with stars set to protest against the bans on the Cannes red carpet Saturday.

"What's happening in Alabama is so important in the world," the "Desperate Housewives" star said, referring to the US state which has banned terminations even in the case of rape or incest.

"It's going to affect everybody if we don't pay attention," she said.

Longoria warned of a "domino effect" with a dozen other Republican-controlled US states seeking to restrict the rights of women to abortion.

The Latina actress produced the Netflix documentary "Reversing Roe" last year which showed how pro-life groups are mounting a major push to overturn the landmark US Supreme Court decision that legalised abortion in 1973.

Eva Longoria poses at 72nd Cannes Film Festival. Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters

Her comments come as a group of female stars led by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Spanish actress Rossi de Palma and French director Claire Denis are set to stage a protest for abortion rights on the Cannes red carpet.

The gathering was originally meant to support the Argentinian documentary, "Let It Be Law", which is premiering Saturday in the festival's official selection.

It tells the story of the struggle for women's rights in the huge, largely Catholic Latin American country, which has become bitterly divided over abortion.

Red carpet protest

Months of protests to decriminalise abortion in Pope Francis' homeland culminated in a make-or-break Senate vote in February.

But the eighth attempt to pass a freedom-to-choose law failed at the final hurdle when it was voted down by 38 votes to 31 in the Senate.

The decision led to thousands demonstrating on the streets of the capital Buenos Aires.

"That night (of the vote) I nearly died from the cold, from the rain, I almost broke my camera," the documentary's director Juan Solanas told AFP.

Argentine filmmaker Juan Solanas. File Photo/AFP

"I felt anger and indignation," said the director, son of the celebrated filmmaker Fernando "Pino" Solanas, a winner at Cannes for his 1988 film "Sur".

"I grew up in an atheist family (and) I respect people's beliefs, but it is medieval and violent to impose them on people who don't think the same," he added.

He and pro-choice Argentinian activists plan to recreate a "green wave" of women in green handkerchiefs, the symbol of Argentina's pro-abortion movement on the red carpet.

Agencies