PARIS - The Cannes Film Festival, seeking to boost its star power, added actors Jude Law and Uma Thurman to its jury panel on Tuesday.

 
The festival on the French Riviera, which begins on May 11, is expected to be a splashier affair this year than last, when financing woes for art house films and the economic gloom cast a shadow over the competition.

This year's festival already had a high-profile boost with American actor Robert DeNiro presiding over the festival's jury.

The addition of British actor Jude Law, star of "Sherlock Holmes", and Uma Thurman, the American actress best known for playing a drug-addled gangster's moll in "Pulp Fiction," will heighten buzz at the festival.

Other members of the jury, announced Tuesday, include Argentine actress Martina Gusman, Chinese producer Nansun Shi, Norwegian writer Linn Ullmann, French director Olivier Assayas, Chadian director Mahamat Saleh Haroun and Hong Kong director Johnny To.

Among the most hotly anticipated films in competition this year is period drama "The Tree of Life" starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, directed by Terrence Malick.

Other films vying for the Palme d'Or, the top prize, include Pedro Almodovar's "The Skin That I Inhabit," starring Antonio Banderas and "Melancholia," a science fiction drama from Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier.