The film adaptation of Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code has been chosen as the opening film of this year's Cannes film festival. The film will have its world premiere at Cannes on May 17, two days before it is released around the world. However, it will be screening out of competition and thus won't be eligible for the festival's prestigious Palme d'Or award.

Directed by Ron Howard with a reported budget of $100m, The Da Vinci Code stars Tom Hanks (with Audrey Tautou) as an American academic caught up in a mystery that has the potential to undermine the foundations of the Catholic church. The-high profile cast also includes Ian McKellen as an eccentric collector.

Both the film and Brown's novel have been subject to attacks from historians and religious groups who argue that Brown's facts are inaccurate and that the conspiracy revealed by his hero, Robert Langdon, is blasphemous. Some of the fiercest criticism has come from the Catholic group Opus Dei, which is portrayed in the book as a shadowy, ultra-conservative religious cult whose members indulge in self-flagellation and a variety of criminal activities, up to and including murder. Opus Dei want to see the film given an adult rating to protect children from the "negative influence" of the story.

"Any adult with a minimum of education can distinguish reality from fiction," said Opus Dei spokesman Marc Carroggio, "but when history is manipulated, you cannot expect a child to make proper judgments."

Despite (or perhaps because of) the controversy, securing The Da Vinci Code for the red carpet in Cannes is seen as a major coup, as the film combines Hollywood star power with a Gallic sensibility and subject matter. French cultural authorities have already bent over backwards to help the film's production, even allowing cameras into the Louvre to shoot the novel's opening scenes, which take place beneath the enigmatic gaze of the Mona Lisa.