Hobbies and interests.
Personal experiences at the Cannes Film Festival
This essay can be read in whole or in "hyperlink chapters".
day one - arrival
day two - serindipity is learned
day three - the day everything cool happens
day four - respite- escape from cannes
day five - Learning to mellow
day six - screenings and the fashion police
day seven - The last day. A day to be a tourist
Overlooking the French Riviera. The street and palm lined walks
are known as the Croisette. The Hotel on the right is The Carlton.
I have finally decided to say it as most succinctly as possible.
Cannes is Cannes.
There is nothing else in the world quite like it.
If you are in the business of making film, you should go to Cannes.
And now on to my experiences....
Day one
Nice From The Air
The flight to Nice was a
pleasant flight; uninteresting unto itself except for the knowledge of
the final destination. When Nice came into sight the level of excitement
of course went up. As we descended toward the blue-green waters of the Mediterranean
Sea, spots gradually shaped into sail boats and larger yachts and yet larger
things you can’t call yachts and you can’t call ocean liners. Call them
sick displays of sick amounts of money. We had arrived.
Nice. (I didn't take this picture)
The walk through customs in Nice was where the “film thing” began. Already we could see the women dressed in tight yellow or green pants and one button shirts talking film. I don’t know how it is for others but when I hear somebody talk about film making in a crowd of people, my heart always makes a quick little jump and I instantly listen a bit to the conversation. This was something that would quickly cease as not only does everyone talk about film making in Cannes during the festival, but the airport in Nice is fairly well crowded with “them” also.
Customs check done... off to Cannes, a half hour or so drive. We stopped at the house where we were going to stay to put our luggage away. Promptly we were invited to sit down for some tea outside on a patio. Four or five cups of tea later, we started developing the buzz one gets when not having slept for 20 hours and having had way to much caffeine. Too soon, we were told “You must talk to your people and get the badge thing worked out..."
The Badge thing
Shortly before I left for the Cannes Film Festival, I had been reading about it extensively. I hadn’t really planned on going to the festival until a week before I left, so pre planning wasn’t something that had been done properly. According to what I read, “you must have a badge in order to do anything at the festival or market. Without one, nothing will happen. You must get your badge two months in advance...Don’t leave the states without a badge...” Dire statements for someone with no badge. Now in Cannes I was going to try to get one. I had extra passport sized photos of myself taken while still in the U.S. to expedite anything that might happen and I had developed some line of patter as to why I needed a badge at this late date. With these and my business cards in hand, I nervously began the hunt for a badge. “Unifrance... go to unifrance.” So was the first advice... we explained to them that we needed badges and then received a day pass; in order to get into the areas where badges to get into the same areas were applied for. After walking up and down steps within the Palais countless times... waiting through lunch breaks, which in France are 12:00- 2:00... no exceptions period, filling out forms, explaining who we were and that we had a film in the market... we were given the final application for a badge. We opted for the free badge versus the badge that cost 400 francs. I never did figure out what the difference was and neither did the person explaining to me that one cost and one didn’t. I filled the last application out. At this point I hadn’t slept in about thirty hours, and the tea had taken serious effects on my muscles. I desperately filled out the application with the dexterity of a seven year old writing with a pen for the first time. It was so illegible (even though it was block print) that I couldn’t even read it. When the box for JOB TITLE was filled out, I broke into giggles that I couldn’t stop. I slowly scrawled out the word President (which I am of my company) and then looked at the entire application as a total work. My god... I would really wonder about this company if this is the way the president writes. I took out a business card and gave it to the woman typing the application and explained to her my condition. She didn’t care, making me think that film makers in general probably have very childish hand writing... maybe a job prerequisite.
It turns out that now you don’t need to bring passport pictures or have them taken there by a photographer... once your application is typed into a computer, they stand you in front of a white wall and with a digital camera, take a computer scan of you which gets burned onto the badge. Pretty nifty except that the software on the computer warps the aspect ratio slightly, giving everyone a “troll from outer space look."
My Badge (notice the warping of the photo)
With that, the badge was mine and now I was an official part of the “49eme FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU FILM". FIRST NOTE; Getting a badge at Cannes was not that difficult. It took approximately three hours. Special note; this was on day 4 of the festival. After that, we went to the American Pavilion. This is part of a large white tent type setup where various countries set up their “home bases”. The American pavilion consisted of several companies and film commissions. The main room was for hanging out; consisting of a bar and lawn type furniture. Along one edge of the room was a series of computers for “web browsing”. The outside area of tables looked out to the walk, the beach and the sea were another great addition. This would become a type of home away from home during the festival. We ordered our first drinks and got our first shocking “welcome to the price of drinks in Cannes” wakeup. I heard drinks were expensive. I heard rumors. I thought they were exaggerations of reality. They were not. In the American pavilion a gin and tonic cost thirteen dollars. We would find out later that was cheap. Drinking to excess in Cannes is something you can only do when you are rich.
Looking at the Carlton
from the Croisette
After the drinks, we made
our way to the Carlton. This is where our foreign distributor was located.
We dropped by their office and said hello. We also made rough plans to
get together on Thursday. This was exciting because I intended to pitch
them my current project. As we left their office, which is two suites in
the hotel, I noticed Troma down the hall. Troma is the company noted for
such classics as Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kabuki Man. It seemed like a party
was going on in their offices. Maybe I would peek in at some point in the
next six days.
The first day finally hit us. We had to sleep... We made our way back to Le Cannet and to the house... and the beds.
I’m at the Cannes film festival.
Time to make things happen, shake it up, talk the talk, walk the walk,
press the flesh... Ahh... maybe a little more
sleep. The second time that I awoke,
I got up. Flash forward one hour...
last portion of the walk to the croisette. Now the big question; I
am now at Cannes. Everybody who is involved in film in some way is here.
How do I hook into that pipeline?
We walked around trying
to figure out where things were and if we recognized any faces. Of course
the only faces we were likely to recognize would be those of stars so I
suppose you could say that I was doing a bit of subconscious star gazing.
Eventually we decided to go into our hard earned money and get a couple
of drinks at the Majestic.170 (about 37 dollars) francs
later we started drinking... slowly.In the course of this drink
we had the opportunity to meet a fellow from CBS Fox video and watch an
old pro table hop. Something about the big cigar and his swagger made it
seem like he was cool, but when you get right down to it, he was doing
the exact same thing we were... only not so delicately. I hoped then
and now- sincerely- that I will not be forced to do the same thing
when I am his age. After leaving that scene,
we headed back to the American Pavilion to hang out and maybe get something
to eat. While Marianne, went in search of one of the few bathrooms on the
Croisette, I sat on a ledge, trying to look as if I was very
important, waiting for someone equally important. (actually, just a joke)
I noticed a photographer standing near me speaking on a cellular phone.
Eventually he hung up and sat near. I had noticed that he was speaking English on the phone so I decided to say Hi...
Near the American Pavilion.
(aren't I cool??)
"Hello" he replied.
"How are you?"
I asked.
"Okay... Do you need
something?"
"No... " I replied.
"I just heard an English voice so I thought I would say
hi."
That started a conversation
that eventually led to his showing me various rolls of film he shot the
days before... Pictures of Al Pacino... The Coen Brothers... The porno
awards....I complimented him on his
good photography (which it was) and then asked him (caricaturing slyness)
if he had any info on parties. He answered by telling me that the big party...
the Moving Pictures party was happening tomorrow. I asked him what
it took to get in and he told me it was a matter of getting a ticket from
the Moving Pictures company (the magazine). They were located on the negative
1st floor of the Noga Hilton. Excitedly (inside) I thanked him and
then we went off as fast as we could in search of the Moving Pictures office.
Trying to get tickets to the Moving Pictures Party.
We got to the Noga Hilton and started our search for elevators that would lead down. When at first we didn't find them we thought, maybe it was a bum tip made by a photographer with a mean sense of humor. Soon enough though, we found a set of elevators which did lead down. We were not the only people on this elevator which was something that made us nervous.We made our way through a small hallway and arrived at the doors of THE PLACE. We entered what looked like a news room of sorts, with all kinds of craziness abounding. Evidently we were not the only people to have heard about this party as we heard many people begging and explaining why they should have tickets.
A large, red headed woman sitting at the front desk was busy telling people,
probably for the thousandth time that tickets were scarce and that they
weren't really giving out any. This was not something I was happy
to hear as I approached her. I began by saying that I wasn't going
to take up more than a minute of her time and then started telling a story. I wasn't about to say that
I heard about this party from some photographer on the street, so
I told her that I had a feature film in the market and the distributor
had turned me on to this party. Was there anything I could do at this late
date. She asked me who the distributor was and I told her.
"Well... it means something,
but I am not the person to speak to for the Americans. You have to talk
to Henry."
I asked her if she could
tell me where Henry was and after not seeing him in the room, she told
me quickly what he looked like. She wasn't unfriendly but certainly wasn't
an angel either. I guess Cannes had taken its toll on her in a less
than agreeable fashion. I thanked her and we left.
At this point I didn't have very high hopes for getting into this party. Plenty of people were leaving with the same annoyed/unhappy face as I, so I didn't feel completely out of place.We went to Curb Entertainment and got some screening tickets for a movie of theirs that was playing the next morning and then went to a bar to think about what we were going to do.We sat down to drink a couple beers. (thirteen dollar Budweiser bottles... good deal) It was a chance for me to moan about how I didn't think we had a chance. Marianne was much more upbeat, but realistically I didn't think it was going to happen. As we were sitting and talking, we struck up a conversation with a couple of girls and a guy, sitting next to us. At one point the guy and one of the girls got up and left. The remaining girl explained that this had been going on for the entire week and that he was an Arab and very possessive... She went on. She and her friend were obvious models and her conversation matched all expectations you have of a model talking. As she went on though, she mentioned that the guy was also (like us) in the movie business and that actually he had done some pretty big movies.
 |
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Mugging outside of the cafe where we drank with Mario Kassar and two models. (I'm looking at film from a projector in case you can't tell) |
"Oh?" I queried.
Doesn't everyone here make movies was the thought. "Yeah" ... He
and his brother... his name is Chris... something with a K.... Kaiser....
Krosser.... I don't know... but he did films like Fatal Attraction
type things."Kassar?" I asked...
"as in Mario Kassar?""Yeah... that's him..."Holy shit, I thought...
when is he coming back? Screw these two bimbos. I want to talk to the guy.Eventually he returned and
we traded numbers of the places we were staying and talked about maybe
getting together away from the craziness of the festival... We never did
get together but it was a classic case of never knowing who you might meet.
Serendipity... That would
be, and is, a key word to this festival. We went back to the Noga
Hilton only to find that Henry still hadn't returned. We would try again
tomorrow morning. My hopes for the party were getting bleaker by the moment. Around 10:30 or so I was
in a pretty bad mood and our feet were in massive pain from the amount
of walking we had done. We decided to head back to the house and call it
a night. Five minutes or so into our walk, already a ways into the town
of Cannes, we heard a boom followed by more.... Fireworks. Damn it... I would
have like to have seen fireworks, I thought angrily.We kept walking, my mood
getting increasingly worse.BOOM BOOM more fireworks.
I turned around to see a bit of blue reflection in the sky followed by
red. This show was starting to really get off the ground. Marianne asked
if I wanted to go back. I said no and we kept on walking. The sounds of
the fireworks driving me to an evil edge. Every time when it sounded like
the grand finale... it would continue.DAMN DAMN DAMN!!!"Do you want to go
back?" Marianne asked again.Again I said no.Twenty minutes later, as
the show kept on going, I said yes. We turned around and headed
back for the Croisette and the beach. I just kept mumbling something
about being sure that when we got back it would be over. After all, it
had already gone on for twenty minutes at full blast.We got to the edge of town
and started seeing some fireworks, along with the sound. God they were
beautiful.We got to the Croisette
and kept watching them. We got to the beach... still they went.Finally we stood on the
beach... the French Riviera and watched the most spectacular fireworks
show I have seen. It went on and on... like one long grand finale.
You could turn around and look at the hotels in the distance and up in
the huge windows, see crowds of people... and then, when a large explosion
of sparks and light would go off, see its reflection in the windows. Toward
the end of the show, an overture by Phillip Glass (I think) began
playing over a PA system that seemed to be wired throughout Cannes.I was standing on a Beach
in Cannes, watching the most spectacular fireworks show happening over
the Mediterranean Sea...What a ridiculous time for
me to be in a bad mood.After the show ended, we
decided that maybe we weren't that tired and that Cannes at night was really
something we should be doing... experiencing. We also decided that since
we had an early day tomorrow... a screening and an attempt to get tickets
to an exclusive party, that we shouldn't make it a late night.We headed for the Majestic,
which we heard was the place to be at night and entered the noisy and crowded
bar. After getting our expensive drinks we headed out for the terrace and
actually found a small table at which to sit. We talked to each other doing
the "Cannes thing" of looking everywhere else for anyone that
might be interesting and finally said hi to the fellows sitting next to
us. Eventually we pulled our tables together and got drunk. The two men, from Britain,
were in the midst of raising money for a feature film, their first, and
after hearing about how I had done it two years before, really got into
conversation. Over the course of the next few hours, people came and went
from our tables, all of them film makers. One bizarre guy kept running
around talking about how he couldn't talk about his project because it
was too big. I don't expect to see a film from him anytime soon. Cliff
(one of the Brits) offered to buy a round and after giving him a stunned
look (we had talked about the price of booze) I accepted a gin and Tonic.
I will have to return the favor at some point in the future. If at Cannes,
one drink should suffice, anywhere else, seven drinks. It was an evening
of surprising honesty for the most part, as they and we weren't trying
to sell anything to each other... just talk about the trials and tribulations
of the film making process. Later... around 1:45 AM,
we decided it was time to go, we had an early day... We went back through
the bar and saw the amusing sight that Cliff had mentioned earlier. Late
at night you could always tell who was at Cannes on a company expense account.
They would be the well dressed men and women hanging around the piano,
singing silly songs at the top of their lungs...We headed back to the house
after a long day of ups and downs... and to bed. Tomorrow would be an early
day... A screening and the continued hunt for tickets to the biggest party
of the festival....
Continue to day 3