Published by Cannes Market Dailies

Jun 27, 2013

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Following IndieReign/ReelClever at Cannes: Day 1

Day 1 at Cannes started bright and early, if maybe not a little too early for me. By the time we got to the hotel the night before, it was midnight, and by the time we had unpacked and washed off the filth of travel, it was after 1am. Even though I luckily fell asleep pretty damn quick, my body was woken up at 5.30am for some strange reason. I spent the next 90 minutes lying there hoping to fall back asleep, but I guess knowing what was about to come, kept me up.

At 7am when the alarm went off, we got up, got changed, and headed out the door onto the streets of Nice, hoping that the quick look at the map 15 minutes before, would be all we needed to find the train station just up the road. Which luckily enough it was. This however instantly brought up our first major issue. Making sense of French words by comparing them to English words we know. Surprisingly works well, but there are times it leads you down the wrong path.

As we bought our train tickets, from the automatic machine, we found ourselves rather chuffed at how easy it was, as reading French wasn’t so hard. Only to realize later on that we had in fact only bought return tickets from Cannes, and not the one we actually needed to get there in the first place. Though be it our swish New Zealand style, or our laid back attitude, no one ever actually pulled us up on this, so as you can imagine, we are now sneakily only buying one way passes in the hope to save a few bucks each day. Who knows how long that will last till we are caught and deported from these shores however.

Once on the platform we had 8 to pick from, with none seeming to be the clear winner of which to choose, so we picked one and hoped it was right. Upon getting on the platform, the ambiguity of if this was right or not was still there, so we did something for the first time since getting to France, we asked a local.

This may seem a simple thing, but we had read and heard so much about the French before coming here, that we couldn’t help but think everyone would treat us with disdain, and maybe even knife us if we said the wrong thing. We of course had already met a lot of French people by this time, but they were all in the service industry of airports and hotels, where written English signs were prevalent, and fluent English speakers were the norm. But we knew on the ground, away from such comforts, things were going to be different.

As Dave approached our first target, I had firmly in my mind a discussion we had had many times before, when thinking about talking to the locals. Do you walk up and say in your best French accent, ‘Bonjour, mon nom est Michael. parlez-vous anglais? Je suis de la Nouvelle-Zélande.’, or instead do you just say, with a big warm and comforting smile, ‘hello’, which instantly sets the tone you’re a foreigner. Plus, it’s much shorter, and far less embarrassing.

So as I heard Dave say, ‘hello’, hence taking the option we though best to take, I waited with bated breath for the response, as was it going to be as easy as conversing with the French earlier, or will we finally hit that non understanding road block. Well, it was the non understanding road block, but luckily no rudeness or knifing either. So Dave said ‘hello’ to another person, and though once again the conversation wasn’t fully understood, it was enough for us to realize we were on the wrong platform. So a hop, skip, and a jump later, and we were where we needed to be.

A few minutes later, the train arrived and we were sitting in our seats, ready for the 40 minute ride to Cannes, and I took this time to sit and write my first blog, which hopefully you read earlier. This blog in particular is being written from the comfort of the New Zealand Film Commissions producer office in Cannes, that has been gracefully set up by the commission to help facilitate New Zealand producers and film business types with a meeting space, and general comfort when looking to get some work done.

Before we knew it, we were there, Cannes! Not only had it been the set destination in our minds for the past 54 hours, but it was a place that I had seen so many times over the years on TV with the red carpet premiers, and celebrity spotting paparazzi running about, that it was rather surreal to finally touch foot in this seemingly mythical place. Yet, it felt very familiar, and dear I say normal.

Firstly when you think of the south of France and the Mediterranean, you almost always think of beautiful weather, endless sun shining down, and ancient beauty everywhere. Instead it was cold, rainy, and surprisingly a lot more graffiti and run down places that I thought. Sure the closer you got to the beach, everything got a bit more swanky, but generally it was just like any other town, with its own issues, that can’t be hidden so well when you’re actually there seeing it with your own eyes. Los Angeles, I’m looking at you!

Despite that though, we walked down to the main area, and like a beacon leading you to safety, we saw the Palais des Festival, making us fully aware we were where we needed to be. Walking up to the building, we could see the finishing touches being put on the red carpet leading up that long staircase, you know, the one you’ve most likely seen dozens of times, even if only subconsciously, in women’s magazines or on the nightly news. This was also the first time we started to see the fans, the ones who had already started lining up to see their favorite celebrities. But something told me this wasn’t just going to like any normal kind of festival where people waited to see famous people. This seemed a little more, different. But more on that later.

We cued up to attain our market attendee badges, and picked up our festival bag that was filled with some very important information, as well as a lot of not so important information. So with our badges hanging around our neck, and now full access to the festival and market attained, we decided to find our home base while we were going to be in Cannes, and that was the NZFC office I mentioned earlier.

A cold wind coming in off the beach, and dodging a few drops of rain, was all we had to contend with during the short walk down the main boulevard, and when a large sign saying ‘New Zealand Film’ grabbed our attention, not only once again did we realize we’re in the right place, but a small bit of comfort and pride rose up from within. Upon entering the producers office, it was instantly recognizable as a very comfortable and homely place to spend time over the coming week, as though we were going to be doing run of the mill office work from it, having a view of the Mediterranean out the window was very cool, and also a sign this wasn’t Kansas anymore.