Cannes 2012: Festival is Woody Allen's worst nightmare Before long he had found a pseudonym, Woody Allen, acquired the Olympia typewriter on which he still pounds out every word he writes, and settled on a pair of thick black rimmed spectacles as his fashion look for life. His first steps on the stage were a stomach-churning ordeal for the uncharismatic Allen - but little by little he found his voice, and an audience, opening up the world of filmmaking. From his first comedy, "What's New Pussycat" - the "mangled" script of which ensured he demanded full control over all subsequent films - the documentary spans his movie career, including "Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and the "Purple Rose of Cairo." Diane Keaton, his first muse, is interviewed at length, and the film touches on the scandal over Allen's affair with the adoptive daughter of his second great love, Mia Farrow, putting an end to their relationship. He married Farrow's daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, in 1997. Allen is typically candid on the subject of sex, recalling being slapped down as a schoolboy for making advances on a fellow pupil, and confessing to a healthy sexual appetite, even now in his seventies. On death, he is deadpan, and hilarious: "My relationship with death remains the same: I am strongly against it," he tells a delighted press conference, filmed in Cannes. Looking back at his filmography, he is characteristically self-deprecating regarding his works. "So few of them have really been worth anything," he says. But "if I keep making films, every once in a while I'll get lucky and one will stand out."