Eight years after the Cannes Film Festival presented Allen with the Palmes des Palmes special lifetime achievement award, the filmmaker is returning to premiere You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger.

After a whopping 45 years in the filmmaking industry, and at least a film ever year, the director has learned to take things as they come. Though he’ll always strive for an unattainable perfection.

“One of the things that’s so fascinating about an art form is that it may be good, mediocre or terrible but it’s not perfect,” he says. “So when it’s over you’re constantly impelled to try another one because you suffer from the delusion that you can get perfection.

“Intellectually, I’ve given up and I’m happy that the picture is not an embarrassment. I start out thinking it’s going to be the greatest thing ever made and when I see what I’ve done I’m always saying, 'I’ll do anything to save this from being an embarrassment.’”