Thierry Fremaux is currently on his first ever visit to Australia - and the first by a Cannes Film Festival artistic director - but instead of selecting films, he is spending his time learning about Australian cinema.

"I am totally ignorant about Australian cinema, which is why I wanted to come," he told 80 filmmakers and film agency representatives at a lunch in Sydney. He emphasised there were no rules about what sort of films Cannes wanted to showcase. "What we want to do is help films ' We want to present what is the state of cinema now."

The best time to submit films for Cannes, he said, was from mid-February to the end of March and it was best to provide them on film - although filmmakers can now opt for digital. He expects to reject 450 of the 500 films he will see, not always because they are not good films but because Cannes is not the right place for them to premiere.

He agreed that there were not enough women on his two selection committees, when asked about this by Film Finance Corporation chief executive Catriona Hughes, but said it was more important to have different kinds of movie buffs on those committees. He confirmed that he would continue to insist on competition films being world premieres, although they could have been shown in their own territory.

Fremaux will be guest of a smaller lunch in Melbourne next week. His schedule also includes visits to the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and the new Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

The first Australian film selected for screening at Cannes was Jedda in 1955, and for 18 of the past 20 years, at least one Australian film has been selected. The most recent, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, opened the Festival in 2001.