Cannes 2010

After the popularity of last year's Cannes diary I thought I would keep another one this year, trying to highlight the differences between last year and this. And so in the best tradition of these things, here are the entries in reverse order...

11-May-2010: The first couple of days

The journey down was fairly uneventful despite the almost continuous rain from when I passed Paris to the moment of arrival in Cannes. The apartment was a bit of a surprise however as obviously the owners have a different idea of what "sleeps four" actually means. It's a good job we all get on well.

I arrived early, largely so that I had a day or so to relax before it all kicked off. The festival itself however looks as though it could do with a few more days of preparation. There was apparenly a heavy storm a week or so ago, and so even as I write this on the day before the festival kicks off they are still building bits of it and clearing away lots of bits of bent display stands and temporary structures.

But through all that the organisation seems to be working as planned. I have my pass, I have the bag, and I have The Guide, all collected this sfternoon from the registration point.

The Guide. I should say a few words about that really. The Guide is a book containging contact details of everyone attending Cannes, along with details of their projects and some info about the company. It is probably the most useful thing about attending Cannes as it is impossible to get any other way. These books are so sought after that people actually chain them to their desks. Seriously. We have never had one before... another good reason to go for the pass we have rather than the SFC version.

The others will be arriving over the next few days, always assuming the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name - Ejafyallajorkul - doesn't shut all the airspace again.

06-May-2010: Getting There...

If you read anything I wrote last year, or have listened to any of my podcasts (and if not, why not? They are all here) you will know that there is no point at all in turning up to Cannes without a pass. Cannes is one big no-go zone if you don't have one, and so you might as well just be a ... tourist. There, I've said it. Cannes without a pass is for tourists, specifically the sort of tourists who like spotting celebrities on the red carpet. Now many things have been said about us, and some of it is even true, but the one thing we are not when it comes to the film industry is tourists. So we needed to get some passes.

In previous years we have taken the 'cheap' option and entered a film in the Short Film Corner. This has given us a couple of passes almost by default, and we have got in that way. But this year things were different, and for the first time there were entry requirements for the SFC and so our films had to meet certain criteria in order to be accepted. Unfortunately the Cannes organisers did not see fit to tell anyone what those criteria were, and so our films - amongst many many others I might add - did not get accepted. So no cheap passes.

But all was not lost as there are plenty of other ways to get in, you just have to pay out a bit more money. So we bought ourselves some passes to the Marché du Film.

Now, we had assumed that since our previous route gave us Marché passes via the SFC we would be back in the same place as last year but by a different route, but this was far from the case. Actually buying a pass rather than getting in on the SFC gave us access to much much more than before, and so we have suddenly found ourselves way ahead of where we were in the mid second week last year and the festival has not even started yet. All that tedious trekking round to numerous people trying to convince them to talk to us later on has already happened and our diaries are looking extremely full.

This is obviously how other people do it. This is the 'proper' way to do Cannes.

I just wish someone had told us.