The alarm goes off on my phone. Haven’t I only just gone to sleep? Oh that’s right, there’s a film festival to get to!
It’s an early start, a really early start, to get a train from London St Pancras to Cannes from sixty-eight euros each way. Sarah McIntosh (Cambridge Film Festival short film programmer) and I woke up at 3.30am to catch a 5.40am train down to the South of France. Was it worth it? Well, yes, of course it was worth it. It’s Cannes – the centre of the film world for a week and a bit. No matter how long you attend, there’s a special buzz to this particular film festival; an energy is generated here unlike most other film festivals…one which signifies Cannes as the trend-setter, the film festival that will be influencing what sort of films appear on our cinema screens in the UK for the next year or two. If you’re a regular visitor to the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge, or any arthouse cinema in the UK, then perhaps you’ll have seen ARABIAN NIGHTS, SON OF SAUL, CAROL, LOUDER THAN BOMBS, or even MAD MAX: FURY ROAD in the past year? They’re all titles that had their inaugural screenings at Cannes last year. Who knows what joys await us at this, the 69th Edition of the Cannes Film Festival?
This is my third year visiting Cannes for Take One. That’s an undoubted honour. I’d like to start off my diaries by thanking my wonderful Editor Rosy for always supporting me in my endeavours at film festivals throughout the year, and particularly this one, as it’s its own unique style of hoop-jumping through to get into, and Rosy has always been supportive of me. I’d also like to pay thanks to Cambridge Film Festival director, Tony Jones, who is not attending this year’s festival, for the first time in (I’d hazard a guess) over twenty years. Tony has always been very good to me in terms of learning about the film industry, from letting me get my hands dirty at Granchester with giant airscreen inflations, to showing me the ropes at Cannes three years ago. An invaluable friend to have.
I’d like to start off my diaries by thanking my wonderful Editor, Rosy Hunt, for always supporting me in my endeavours at film festivals
A few hints for those of you thinking of coming out. Get a temporary sim card in the UK, not out here. I went with Three Mobile this year, and it cost me £20 for 12gb of data, 300 mins and 1000 texts. To buy a simcard with 10gb off data on it our here in the Marche du Film costs… 99 euros to rent, or 189 euros to buy. That’s a quick and easy saving to make before getting to the festival.
We met up with the lovely Sue Burge (a regular tutor on our evening courses in the cinema) in the Gare du Nord and headed over to the Gare du Lyon with her for a coffee before our direct train down to Cannes. Sue is in Paris writing poetry, and was off to a Parisian cinema in the evening to watch the festival’s opening ceremony on the big screen, followed by a live stream of Woody Allen’s latest film, CAFÉ SOCIETY – one that I’m really looking forward to seeing. We don’t get in in time to watch the film or attend the opening ceremony, but I’ll try and catch it tomorrow in the Salle du Soixantième when a repeat screening takes place.
The SNCF train down to Cannes is one of those lovely double-decker high-speed trains where the French countryside whizzes past you, in the most comforting of styles, even in our standard class seats. I found myself listing to podcasts, having a cup of tea in the café cart, and generally just being very relaxed for the duration of the journey.
Upon arrival at Cannes, the first queue debacle took place when I picked up my Marche du Film badge (marketplace badge – giving me access to films in the market as well as the main strands of the festival). The chap on the desk told me I could also get a press badge (news to me) if I “just queued up over there.” At which point he beckoned to a very stationary-looking queue to my right. I duly wandered over, thinking that it would all be worth it if I got a press badge as well as my marche one. One and a half hours later, upon being instructed by three different desks that in fact, no, I wasn’t entitled to a press badge, I was beginning to remember…this is Cannes. You queue and queue and queue – sometimes there’s something lovely at the end of the queue, and sometimes you just get turned away and it’s all for naught.
We met Loretta Gandolfi (programmer for the Cambridge Film Festival) at the bus stop in town, as she’d flown in to Nice early on, and after popping our bags in the apartment in the Old Town area of Cannes, near the harbour, we went for dinner and a tired, but worthwhile toast of our efforts at making it back to Cannes for another year. I’ll aim to keep a diary of one or two day’s length on here for the duration of the rest of my stay here at the festival. I’m here till May 21st, and am hoping to conduct interviews and write reviews for a number of different events happening here. For now, sleep.
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