Sean Penn’s Dublin-based movie wows at the Canne Film Festival - VIDEO

Sean Penn’s latest project “This Must Be The Place” has wowed crowds at the Canne Film Festival.

Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, Penn plays an aging 1980s pop star in search of his father’s tormentor.

The film is named after the Talking Heads song recently covered by Arcade Fire, which featured in the film and is partly set in Ireland.

Penn’s character Cheyenne wears a black wig and red lipstick for the part. A washed up pop singer, he refuses to move on with his life. His closest friend a a goth played by Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson.

Set in Ireland, Penn's character is living out his retirement with his loyal fire-fighter wife played by Frances McDormand.

When Cheyenne hears that his father is dying, he returns to New York to discover that his father spent his life seeking revenge against a guard who tormented him while he was a prisoner at Auschwitz.

After his father passes away, he goes on the road in search of the now elderly German guard who now lives in Utah.

Speaking about Italian director Sorrentino, Penn praised his work.

"He played the piano, I turned the pages," Penn said.

"This is one of the very few film masters -- film masters -- going right now, and somebody who is going to make original cinema for a long time in a way that inspires."

On the film’s portrayal of revenge, Penn said it related to American life.

"When you see a sense of vengeance, and the way it's responded to, embraced, rejected -- recently in the United States, as vengeance was tasked, and completed in the killing of Osama bin Laden -- and throughout the culture the various responses to that, the way the people emotionally get taken away with it," he said.