Polanski takes surprise ad for Prada to Cannes

Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski unveiled his new ad for the Italian luxury design house Prada in a surprise screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

Polanski attended the showing of the short film titled "A Therapy", which has British actors Ben Kingsley and Helena Bonham Carter play a therapist and his posh Prada-clad patient.

"It's a sort of anti-ad," he said afterwards, joking that he wanted to show the world that he was as good at making short films as he was at long ones.

The Kingsley character quickly loses interest in Bonham Carter and turns his attention to the fur coat she has hung on a rack, which he ends up stroking his face with as a final caption reads "Prada Suits Everyone".

The ad was screened before Polanski presented a restored version of "Tess", a 1979 movie starring Nastassia Kinski, who was also with him at the festival.

The Cannes festival earlier screened a documentary on the director which features him chatting about everything from his childhood in Nazi-occupied Poland to the sexual assault case that caused him to flee the United States in 1978.

Polanski was in 2009 arrested in Switzerland to be extradited to the United States but Swiss authorities rejected the demand.