CANNES, France (AP) — The actresses showed up at their news conference yesterday at the Cannes Film Festival in elbow-high gloves, oversized cubic zirconia hoops, lots of leopard print and even a kitten-eared headband.

The news conference for French actor-director Mathieu Amalric's new movie "Tournee," or "On Tour," about a raucous band of stripteasers, was not your typical news conference. Curtseying and winking at the gathered journalists, the five women — real life burlesque dancers from the US — oozed enthusiasm about being at the world's premier cinema showcase.

"I feel like Cinderella going to the ball," gushed Kitten on the Keys, a brunette whose act consists of playing the piano in spangly bra and thong and singing raunchily funny songs rife with double-entendres.

In the movie, Kitten — the one sporting the cat ears — plays one of six members of a New Burlesque troop touring provincial France under the direction of a disaffected former TV producer fallen on hard times, played by Amalric.

The camera follows the troop onstage, as they regale audiences with their bawdy, funny, inventive striptease numbers; backstage as they deck themselves out in fake eyelashes, glitter, pasties and ostrich feathers; and through the camaraderie and loneliness of the tour, as they joke, clash and console one another.

The cast includes curvaceous blondes Mimi le Meaux and Dirty Martini — two of the founding members of the New Burlesque movement, which looked to the glamorous striptease acts of the 1940s and '50s as a way of expressing female sexuality and of valorizing all sorts of body types.

Dirty Martini, a Woodstown, New Jersey, native, trained as a classical ballet dancer throughout her childhood before turning to striptease.

"There weren't many spots (in ballet) for a woman of my size and shape," she told The Associated Press in an interview. "No one was going to pick me up and say 'hey, you're a great dancer, let's see how we can outfit you with your big-ass hips?' So I had to make a venue for myself."