Ghosts Of The Abyss, James Cameron's 3D documentary in which he returns to the wreck of the Titanic, is to screen in Official Selection, out of competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The screening will take place on Saturday May 17, three days into the festival, at the Grand Amphitheatre Lumiere where the audience will be provided with special 3D glasses required to view the film.

The documentary follows the Academy Award-winning director back to the legendary ship whose story inspired his 11 Oscar-winning film. Accompanied by a team of the world's foremost historic and marine experts, as well as frequent Cameron collaborator actor Bill Paxton (who narrates), Cameron explores the wreck that lies two and a half miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

The imagery was only possible thanks to high-definition underwater cameras, a specially designed lighting system and remote controlled robots that could access the inside of the vessel that were specially developed over four years before filming took place in 2001. This photography is combined with superimposed shots of actors and sets representing life on the ship to help put the real shots into context.

Ghosts Of The Abyss is already playing in Imax theatres and specially outfitted 35mm 3D theatres in the US, Canada and the UK. In North America, where Buena Vista established the first-ever nationwide ticket sales program enabling the public to purchase tickets for any show nationwide through a phone line that would then mail the tickets to their homes, the film has earned $5.3m from 97 theatres since release on April 11. In the UK BVI has taken $327,536 (£206,020) from just six sites since April 15.