MUMBAI: Car manufacturing company Renault is this year's official sponsor for the Cannes Film Festival.

As part of the agreement, from 13 to 24 May, a fleet of about hundred vehicles including 70 Vel Satis and 30 Espace will drive film personalities and festival guests to and from the venue.

It may be recalled that Louis Renault's Voiturette appeared in the Lumière brothers' early films in 1899, when the first film studios were built in Boulogne-Billancourt at the same time as the first Renault factory came up on the Ile Seguin.

Renault is continuing its commitment to film and television production today through an active policy of sponsorship and product placements. Several models from the Renault range are featured in films in this Festival's official selection including Les Herbes Folles by Alain Resnais.

Renault has also been encouraging Les Toiles Enchantées, a not-for-profit organisation chaired by Alain Chabat that screens movies in children's hospitals, by lending two vehicles to transport projection equipment and crews to children in hospitals around Cannes.