The Cannes Festival: the unadulterated story
A week into Cannes, I wrote an article about my experience there for an English publication. It came back to me vulgarly altered, scared by lies that the editor assured would make the article "jump off the page". I have disowned the article and since I don't know with what gross deformities it will be published, I have written the following humble text on my Cannes experience. As lacking in glamour and "spice" as it may be, it is truthful, not everybody that goes to Cannes lives an orgiastic fairytale.
Cannes is a peaceful quarter of Nice. During most of the year, it harbors numerous retirees. There is a cute outdoor market where portly ladies call you "mademoiselle" and hand you fresh goods with a stiff politeness.
To the south of the quaint houses and capillary streets, is the center of the Cannes Festival, that is the Palais (housing the film market and theatres), its long row of five star hotels, and the even larger army of pricy restaurants. Every year, the festival opens like an unhealed gash and lets in a flood of mini-skirt wearing fans and office-attired production company and press employees with yellow badges. The stars make themselves scare, short appearances on TV are interspersed amongst long stays in their Martinez Hotel. Note it has bright blue shutters that make it look like a cancerous cottage house.
The Hotel Martinez
On my first day in Cannes, I walked the red carpet, or rather a small piece of the red carpet. Small technical details on red-carpeting seem appropriate here (and I'm only giving these out because I had no idea of what the red carpet was before going to Cannes). The Cannes festival lasts ten days, every evening witnesses one to two film premieres. Stars that attend these premieres, roll up in front of the entrance to the theatre and slowly, very slowly follow the red avenue up through the corridor of photojournalists and disappear in the theatre. This happens twice a day, giving luxury clothes designer ample opportunities to advertise their summer collections. Stars desperate to advertise their upcoming movie, but unable to get tickets to the prestigious premiere orchestra seats make their bombastic appearance on the carpet and quickly jump into a discreet van at the back of the theatre.
Unfortunately, or fortunately (I don t really have the money to buy myself a Dior dress), I was part of the non-star crowd that gets tickets through their company and fill the balcony seats. Black tie dress is still a requirement, but instead of strolling up the whole carpet, we are siphoned through a small path on the side of the photojournalist's corridor that then swerves to rejoin the red carpet at the very end. Finding a place in the orchestra requires a tibetan monk's endurance, and by the time i'd finished climbing all those steps, I realized I was very hungry, and that the screen was no bigger than a TV set hanging in the distant black firmament.
On Cannes parties: I went to two of them, one of which I hosted. But I could get a pretty good feel of the other parties by reading the Hollywood Reporter's (a film business magazine) daily Cannes party page. The party's concentration of stars per/square meter, the performances or extra-features and the food and drink. Depending on these three criteria, the Hollywood Reporter awards parties from one to five martinis. The Weinstein's party for example was awarded one martini, the decadent Short-bus party was awarded four I believe (or was it three). Mostly parties are a ring within which film business moguls and minor roles exchange namecards with each other as fast as they can, or journalists and fans in disguise take pictures of themselves with the available stars.
Outside the parties awaits a ring of fans and invitation-less journalists. Fans are probably the people I admire the most in Cannes. Starting early in the morning, they camp out on the long avenue from the Martinez Hotel (where the star-guests step into their limousines) to the Palais' red carpet. Around the crowded entrance of the Martinez, young children run around brandishing the autographs their cute smiles got them. Adults stay glued to the separating bars like prisoners. In front of the red carpet, other fans have brought step ladders to have a better view, paparazzis without a press badge climb up in the surrounding trees.
Of course, under the red-carpet and party scene, grumbles the shark-crowded film market and meeting scene. These are the reasons for the festival's existence. Without the business, how would Cannes pay for its prestigious guests? It is in this scene mostly, that I immersed myself for the last two weeks. I can't reveal much about it, so I will say simply this: yes there are a lot of sharks and trying double-entendre conversations, but among them, one can find some friendly fish and some enjoyable and fresh moments to share.
The Palais
