Film stars come to Cannes to promote themselves and their projects. So, where would it be better to launch a wry documentary bemoaning the perceived dominance of celebrity pulling-power over content?

With parties, pitching and paparazzi already in overdrive at the world's premier movie market, director James Toback on Sunday showed Seduced and Abandoned, the story of how he and actor Alec Baldwin talked to directors, investors and studio heads at Cannes last year to seek funding for a film with no A-list star.

They never intended to make the film, but its seemingly bankable plot, which centers around a spy and a journalist in war-ravaged Iraq turned out to be no compensation for its lack of big names.

Baldwin himself was dismissed as a mere television actor, and the female star, Canada's Neve Campbell, star of the Scream films, was said to have little box-office power.

"Money follows stars," says Toback in the documentary, acquired by Time Warner's HBO.

As well as being the world's top cinema showcase, the festival on the French Riviera brings together up to 40,000 professionals to buy and sell films. Cannes is where they piece together funding for projects, even though many of these never make it before an audience.

One investor tells Toback that he doesn't even read scripts anymore. Now, he decides whether or not to back a project based completely on the stars involved. In his experience, the marketing of a movie has become vastly more important than its the film's content.

Small wonder, then, that the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake and Emma Watson are not merely promoting finished movies showing during the 12-day Cannes festival, but are also taking advantage of the limelight to talk up their new projects and seek distributors.