Film Festivals
Cannes 2004
Narrative
Well, Cannes (pronounced as in "a can of beans"). What can you say? Well lots, but the first thing to say is that it's a bugger to get to. Not especially, you may think - after all, there are direct flights from Heathrow to Nice. And we booked our tickets in August last year. We got a cheap deal on the Travelodge for the night before. I got discounted car parking right next to the airport.
The night before our flight was spent stuck down a one way service road for four hours while the police cleaned up a motorcycle accident. There was an amusing encounter with a gurning traffic cop who appeared to be on speed or something. Combining this with a uniform and a propensity to aggression, he really was quite impressive when he flipped his lid at us. Yet, we later learned, he has so much to learn from French security.
The next day we set off with bad directions, and arrived just 50 minutes before our flight was due to depart. Fortunately there was no rush as they had changed the timetable without notifying us and our flight had gone an hour prior to our arrival. We wound up flying via Paris Charles de Gaulles.
Anyway, arrived too late to go to Cannes that day, we wound up having a very good pizza from a van by the side of the road. As Graham and I had a beer on the balcony outside our room we could see the thirty-odd arc lights that line La Croisette reaching up in the the sky, just over the headland that separated us from our goal. Given the previous 24 hours or so, it was enormously frustrating.
The
next day was the first of our daily early starts. But this was not to get
the best spot on the beach. What we actually did do was either queue for tickets,
or go to screenings. The Palais (think NEC-by-the-Sea) opened at 9.00, and
you could get tickets for that day and the day after. Generally these tickets
were for early morning showings. This is because there are levels of Cannes
- the kings of the jungle are not the stars, they are the people with "buyer"
in their entry in the Participants Directory. More of them and their role
later.
There are in fact a number of Cannes festivals that all run simultaneously. There is the main competition (which bizarrely has both "in competition" and "out of competition" sections), then the Director's Fortnight, la prix de la jeunesse, the Cinephiles, also Un Certain Regard (as (I think) Joe Queenan said, only the French could consider "worth a look" to be a compliment). The other thing you have to bear in mind is that it is run by French Bureaucracy. That being the case there is no definitive list of screenings for all competitions. You then have to add in the randomness factor produced by a few cinemas around Cannes showing films from any of the above festivals at any time they choose, without notice.
So, the mornings were early starts. The nights were late
as well. That's because so much of the business and networking goes on at
the various parties that happen, plus in the bars that are open till 4.30
am. Cannes has an enormous sea front, and during the festival it gets taken
over by maybe two dozen marquees, none of which are smaller than "massive".
These are occupied by various nations' film commissions,
all promoting their wares, and hoping that producers will film in their
country and therefore generate business. At night they are used to host
various parties. This may sound glamorous, and if you are going to throw
a party, then the Cannes seafront is pretty much the best place you can
choose, but the sole purpose of these are to network and make contacts.
There is free booze though, so you can't really complain. So we went to the Sgrin Cymru/Screen Wales party, Screen England's party, a Kodak party (no, seriously - they are big players!), and a straight8 party (see www.straight8.net). It was however a beautifully "Cannes" moment when Graham and I realised we had invites to three simultaneous parties, and were also due to go to a preview screening of a new Kevin Bacon film.
Bizarre moments include seeing a chap dressed as Jesus nailed to the cross being driven down La Croisette on the back of a pick-up truck, publicising a film called Passion. I also saw Batman being driven along the front in a De Lorean. Holy Back to the Future!
If the buyers are the kings of Cannes, then at the other end are the chancers trying to sell their film. We met some Americans on a bus, and they were doing exactly that. They had shot a film for $500,000 about a bunch of film school graduates who can't afford to shoot a film. To solve the problem they decide that they will hold up banks, film the raids, and when they have got the footage that they want, someone will call "cut", and they will give all the money back. The director's mum worked for a plastic surgeon who had provided the half a million. They had made a 30 minute cut of their 90 minute film, and they had two screenings booked.
We went to one of them. It was part of a short film showcase, so after two hours of generally good films, their's started. They had flown 6000 miles from LA. It was all going well, and then ten minutes in the film stopped, the sound ended and the lights went up. The lads were sitting in front of us and nearly went potty. Then from the back a French accent said "We have stopped this film as the room is needed to screen another film for some buyers." There was no apology or a thank you or a please. Just the curt announcement. I told you the buyers are the kings of Cannes.
Yachts. Swipe me, you've not seen yachts until you've been to Cannes. They are, very obviously, a statement of someone's wealth and power. Still, you have to be slightly impressed by a yacht that has room for a helicopter on the back of it. The sides of it also opened up so that a smaller landing ship could be disgorged from its bowels.
Generally though, it was an absolutely exhausting and exhilarating week. It took me about four or five days to properly recover. I will be going again, but I'm not sure it's worth going to if you don't have accreditation. You are unlikely to get in to any films, and you won't be able to get in to the pavilions, the Palais, the Marche, or many (if any) parties. If you are in that neck of the woods and it is on, it's probably worth a day out, just to have a look at it.
Glamour and the Stars
People have asked me if it was glamorous. Basically it's not. It is, above all, a trade convention. This dawned on me properly when I was sitting in the Palais being given a demonstration of FinalDraft 7.0. It's a great piece of software and I bought a copy.
The trade convention aspect of it is actually catered for by the simultaneously running "Marche de Cannes" which is, as you may have guessed, a film market, buying and selling the rights to show and distribute. Millions of dollars of business is done. It's quite weird to overhear deals going on as they happen everywhere.
It's in the Marche hall that you realise the true nature of Cannes. The Hall itself is probably the size of a couple of football pitches. It's divided up in to trade stands, just like any other trade convention. Each stall is occupied by some producer who is desperately trying to sell the rights to some film they have made. This is why the buyers are the true kings of Cannes - they are the people who actually have money and can actually get things done.
It's also in this hall that you realise the true nature of the film industry. You suddenly realise that what keeps the film world going isn't a handful of box office busting blockbusters. It's the thousands, literally thousands, of crap films that go straight to video that you will never see unless you are an insomniac and your tv is stuck on channel 5. It's these films that actually keep people in employment.
There were countless stalls selling Chuck Norris/Cynthia Rothrock type films, plus chop-socky here there and everywhere. Bollywood was reasonably well represented. Horror films were everywhere - again, targeted at adolescent males who don't care how bad a film is.
So what is glamorous then? Well, you can't help but smile when you go up the red carpet in a tuxedo, flanked by police officers in their best uniforms, with the flashbulbs popping. Graham and his girlfriend were picked out by an overhead camera and projected on to a big screen. It's a bit of a palaver all to go and see a film, but when you stand back and look at it, you realise why they do it. Basically, everybody looks completely money.
Oh,
and they don't sell popcorn or drinks in the cinema - you are there to watch
a film, not to eat or drink. They take themselves seriously.
Anyway, yes you do get to see some stars, and here is the rundown: Kevin Bacon. Kyra Sedgewick (aka Mrs Kevin Bacon). Benjamin Bratt. Danny Glover. John Leguizamo. Julia Sawalha. Kevin Kline. Charlize Theron. Julie Delpy. Quentin Tarantino. Andy Garcia.
The scrums to see stars do happen, and quite spontaneously. Initially they are quite exciting, but when you do one and finally get to the front and realise it's for some french actor you've never heard of, you kind of feel a little cheated and are wary of getting in to another one.