Tag Archives: Un Certain Regard

May 16 2013
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Cannes Film Festival, UGA Students

No Bling for Me

I was not alone.

There were many of our students and a professor, too, that fell victim to the allure and fate of Sofia Coppola’s new film, “The Bling Ring” (based on these actual events), which opened the Un Certain Regard competition tonight in Cannes.

With a screening time of 7:45PM we queued up in the drizzly Debussy Theatre line at 5PM – some folks, even earlier than that. But even after 3+ hours of standing in line with other Festival and Market Badge possessors we didn’t make it into the premiere.

Methinks it could have something to do with the curious fact that the line started at about a 3-person width (shown below on the LEFT – photo taken @5:15) and miraculously ended with an 8 or 9-person width (shown below on the RIGHT – photo taken @7:30). Funny how that happens, huh?

photo

Curses on you cheaters and line-cutters!

Ahhh, well. What can you do?

Guess there’s nothing left to say but – “And, so it is…”

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May 19 2012
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Cannes Film Festival, Movie Reviews

"Beasts of the Southern Wild"

…is fantastic. Much like I reminisce about the exponential build of sound that seems neverending in the final scene of “Melancholia” that I experienced last year in the Salle de Soixantieme and the unrelenting roar of applause and ovations after the red carpet premiere of “Drive” in the Lumiere Theatre last year, the opening first few minutes of the “Beasts of the Southern Wild” has become another Cannes moment for me that I will remember fondly forever; its booming crescendo blasting through the Debussy Theatre speakers and pounding my chest as I sat in my center, orchestra seat today.

Beautifully shot on location in southern Louisiana, “Beasts” is insanely realistic in its portrayal of this rogue backwoods lifestyle you can almost feel the sticky humidity in which the characters’ adventures in daily life unfold.

The main character, ‘Hushpuppy,’ is played by an intimidatingly talented six-year-old girl, Quenzhane Wallis, who is not only beautiful but she has a stare that can slay you. She is just the best thing ever!

The score is incredible and moving. The characters force you to engage emotionally despite a lack of dialogue as the film is more heavily filled with narration and playful games between father, daughter, and rough neck neighbors. It is just one of those movies I am SO glad I saw in a theatre so big with an audience so happy to see it. This film is a cinematic journey that reminded me of how fun good movies can be. I think it’ll do big things in its Un Certain Regard competition here at Cannes (and potentially beyond)…  Enjoy it — I did!
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May 13 2011
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Cannes Film Festival, Celebrities, Rant, UGA Students

Restless for "Restless"

Gus Van Sant’s new film, “Restless,” premiered in the Un Certain Regard competition on the second day of the Festival. A majority of students along with myself and Jennifer Smith (the program’s Telecomm professor) got in line about an hour and a half before the doors opened for the screening. The early bird catches the worm in this town – that is for sure.


The students patiently waited in the “Market Badge” line and killed time by chatting, eating paninis and nutella from the food trucks ’round the corner, and scouring over their Market Guides to plan their next move after this movie lets out. I personally sat on the ground in line to give my poor footsies a rest. It’s amazing what you notice from the ground angle. Check out our student, Ashley Derrington’s, amazing leopard paint job on her toe nails. Too cool!

What happens next is a series of unfortunate events. The gate to enter the red carpet stairs finally opened and students began to boom up them into the Debussy Theatre (where all films in the Un Certain Regard category of competition are screened). However, the line quickly stopped in short bursts as several of our students were stopped for having on – gasp! – flip flops. I know, I know – American students in Cannes wearing comfortable shoes while waiting in line to see an afternoon movie – the horror! Well, thank goodness this wasn’t our first rodeo and the students were prepared with bags of extra clothes/shoes ready to throw on. It is Cannes, after all, and I teach the students early on that you never know when you’ll nab a last-minute red carpet ticket or be whisked away on a yacht and proposed to by a hot, young celeb – so it is better to arm yourself with tux/cocktail dress and fancy shoes at every moment of the day…because you just never know.
One by one, students paired high heels with denim skirts and shiny tuxedo shoes with cargo shorts. Who cares if they look like slobs as long as their feet are styling, right? (This is an unspoken french credo of Cannes.)
Well fast forward to the last few of our students attempting to get in and, lo and behold, Daniel Harrison had not anticipated needing to wear tux shoes at any part of his easy-going day. Thinking on the quick and acting even quicker, I get the brilliant idea for Sam Parker (a student who already made it past the devilish doormen) to “pass back” his closed-toed shoes to the toe-baring Daniel. Before Sam can object to my impulsive idea, I take his shoes from his feet and run them down to Daniel. Standing there, proud of my resourcefulness, I think, “Whew, we are in the clear.” Ohhhhh, how wrong I was. Immediately several large, khaki-clad men take Daniel AND Sam by the arms and escort them out of the line and red carpet. Shocked, I begin asking what the problem was. The most ornery of these men proclaims that ‘they are done’ because ‘they cheated’.
Now, before I continue – let me give you a quick rundown on these khaki-wearing folks. Every year, the Cannes Film Festival employs hundreds of men and women workers who, I have to assume hate their lives, to man the doors, carpets, entrances, exits, bathrooms, sidewalks, crosswalks, and anywhere where a person might stand and live their life. They are given khaki suit uniforms, an atom-sized amount of authority, and an atomic-bomb-sized amount of ego and attitude. I’ve always said how I believe a job requirement for these Cannes workers must be clinically diagnosed bi-polar disorder and tiny penises/frigid nether regions (depending on the gender). It only makes sense.
This brings me back to my exchange with the Napoleon-esque man with an earpiece (that I think is connected to nothing) who has kicked out two of our students. I begin politely pleading with him in French about how the boys didn’t know it was wrong and should be let in. “Ce n’est pas possible,” he says – aka, ‘It is not possible’ – a favorite phrase of the khaki-wearing workers. Usually, ‘it’ IS possible and my intent is always to prove them otherwise.
I continue speaking nicely to the man in hopes of changing his mind, but underneath the surface my blood is boiling. My calm exterior isn’t working, so I turn up the heat a little. Still speaking French, I plead with a female worker – saying how the boys had been first in line, waited for hours, and were never warned about the shoe situation even though Festival employees had hovered next to them just outside the line and could have easily given them a heads up. She seems sympathetic, but explains that it’s ultimately the ornery man’s decision to make. Great.
I hop on my French cell phone like a mad woman, calling a dozen of the students already inside the Debussy begging for anyone with extra shoes to help out. Sam and Daniel look on outside the gates with puppy dog eyes as I execute every crazy idea that comes to mind in an attempt to get them in.
Twenty minutes pass with failed attempts at trading out shoes, more arguing in foreign tongues, and a final attempt to beg to let the boys in and kick me out since it really was all my fault to begin with. None of it works. Finally I leave the theatre as well and join the boys outside the gates. I was too fed up to stick around in the vicinity any longer and there’s no way I would have gone in to see the movie knowing that the boys were left outside. I was more frustrated with the fact that they were missing the movie because of something I did that could have been avoided.
I try to lift their spirits (and mine) and we head across the street to Caffe Roma (my second time in two days) to drown our sorrows in pizza. We share a wonderful meal, discussing where we’re from and what we want to do with our lives next. I realize that I am living a parallel life to these students in the sense that, after this trip, we are all jobless and intimidated by the unknown next steps in the ‘real world’. They are graduating and wanting to hold on to every last second in Athens – I am unemployed for the first time since graduating from college four years ago and hanging on to every last second here in France before my no-paycheck-reality slaps me in the face when I fly home.
After a couple hours, we pay the check and pack up our leftover pizza (read: slyly, yet shamelessly shovel it into one of the many ziploc freezer bags I always carry with me in my pack). Hey, a girl’s gotta be prepared. Yacht parties? Leftovers? I’m ready.
Daniel, Sam, and I head back to The Debussy which is now unanimously referred to as ‘Debitch’ by our students (who can blame them?) to meet our cohorts exiting the theatre after “Restless.”
The students begin to trickle out of the glass doors at the top of the red carpet as do, to our surprise, the film’s stars. In the red dress is Van Sant’s female lead, Mia Wasikowska, being escorted out of the premiere.
And, the Cody Sanders lookalike in the next photo is the the male lead in “Restless”, Henry Hopper (son of Dennis Hopper).
A few minutes behind the cast’s exit, we spot a couple of our female students lagging behind and dancing like maniacs exiting down the red carpet. This is a hyper bunch of kids, so I don’t think much of it.
However, when they reach the bottom of the stairs where we are waiting they are talking a mile-a-minute about how they just met and got a picture with Rachel McAdams. See below for photographic evidence of this. Pretty awesome – especially considering that it was our student in the photo, Brittany Biddy’s, birthday. What a memorable birthday present for her!
(photograph taken from Brittany’s facebook)
McAdams had attended the screening with her “Midnight In Paris” costar, Adrien Brody, so it was quite a star-studded premiere. No wonder they wanted our ungodly toes covered.
This concluded the end of day two of the Festival. There were highs and lows, but all in all it was another eventful day.
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May 19 2009
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Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, Celebrities, Guest Speakers, Uncategorized

A busy beaver, am I

Realizing the last post I made on here was on Day 3 of the Festival is quite daunting given that it is now the morning of Day 7.  Trying to remember what has happened the past four days is killer.  So much happens and you think you’ll remember so easily then – voila – you don’t.

Here’s my best stab at what I’ve been up to (without going into a ‘Dear Diary’-esque rundown):
(the rest of) DAY 3
– Saw a late afternoon showing of the Un Certain Regard selection, the Japanese movie “Air Doll” …it was okay, certainly not great.  Glad I saw it, but don’t care if I ever see it again.

– Went to a great pizza place (“Le Pizza”) at the far end of Cannes with Sophie, Raven, and Chaz Ebert (and their longtime assistant, Car
ol, who showed up with camera in hand per Roger’s request for her to snap some pictures that night for his well-read postings at Cannes).
– Discovered the similarities that Chaz and I share when it comes to writing and basically taking on any task 
— perfectionism.  Don’t want to start a task if you can’t devote all the time to it that it needs and once we do start a task it’s hard to ever finish it for fear that it is not perfectly done (i.e. scrapbooking would be a nightmare for us).  We both did agree that we are good at planning events and following through with those because we can see the instant gratification from the people they serve immediately following their completion.  For example, I said I feel that sense of accomplishment when I execute various events for Fletcher Martin or for this Cannes group and she followed up with a very nice, reassuring, “Yes, I felt the same way when I planned t
he event surrounding Roger getting his star on the Hollywood walk of fame.”  So, as you can see, Chaz and I are operating on very similar scales here.  We’re basically one and the same.  🙂
Day 4

– Utilized the space I arranged for us at the Hotel Victoria for the first time when the Swedish producers, Carl and John, from “Let The Right One In” spoke to our group of students.  They were perfect and so was the Hotel Victoria staff.  At the end of the day the use of that space cost us 20euro in glass bottles of Evian for the speakers.  Not bad.
– Walked around Cannes all afternoon  shopping and whatnot.  Ha
d high hopes of begging for tickets for Ang Lee’s red carpet premiere of “Taking Woodstock”, but apparently nature had other plans for me.  My body’s condition deteriorated rapidly throughout the day as more and more signs were beginning to show that I was wearing myself out.
– Nixed plans for the premiere and grabbed a train home, lymphnodes fully swollen and chest and head feeling not so good.
– Went to bed and tried to sleep this off until the next (very busy) morning of meetings and more planning.
Day 5
– Woke up with the Swine Flu.  (Probably not, but it was definitely a close cousin.)  
– Slep
t in as long as I could before I had to get another train to Cannes for an 11:30 meeting in the Cannes Classics office of the Palais with one mister very Greek, Van Papadopoulo.  Still not well, but as you know, “The show must go on!”  Nate (who by this time had already flown back stateside to NYC for the Peabody Awards) had set this meeting up for me in his absence before he left.  I was to meet Mr. Papadopoulo and get details on the admission of our students into this year’s Cannes Master Class (being held the following Tuesday – i.e. today…in an hour – i.e. why the hell am I still typing this freaking blog).  Last year the Master Class was conducted by Tarantino, the year before it was Scorsese.  Usually the class is held in a 1,200+ seat theatre, but this year the theatres size was a paltry 350 seats.  (Yikes!)  Luckily though, Mr. Papadopoulo really appreciated the Athens, GA to Athens, Greece connection and decided to reserve a tenth of the theatres seats for our group of students (insert shock and happiness on my part).  So that meeting w
ent very well and we left it on the note of, “See you Tuesday at the Master Class…and if you ever make it to Athens, GA please bring us a fantastic Greek restaurant.”
– Went back outside to kill time before our next speaker presentation at my little gem, the Hotel Victoria.  Sat on a bench to change into some basic, black flats that I’d just purchased from the shoe store Andre, and ended up meeting a pleasant new friend on a sidewalk bench.  As I was changing my shoes I heard this poor girl getting hit on by two not-so-suave French guys and though, “Poor thing.”  As soon as the guys left she looked at me for a unifying girl-to-girl glance and was surprised when English came out of my mouth.  We struck up a conversation immediately and found great compatibility in one another.  Originally from Romania, she now lives in San Franc
isco working on the account side of advertising, most recently for Razor Fish.  She was killing time in Cannes while the friend she was visiting worked during the day and I was killing time before my next meeting.  We decided to grab lunch together and keep each other company.  Talked a lot about the industry and whatnot – she was very amazed and interested at what I was doing in Cannes, so I was glad to show her around the sites and hotspots along the Croisette.
– Left Felicia to run to the Hotel Victoria and set the place up for our second guest 

speaker, director Paul Cox.  Paul is a lovely Dutch man who claims Australia as home.  He is cynical, realistic, and strongly set in his beliefs.  I kind of love him.  I’m sure some of the students were taken aback by his often polarizing opinionated stances, but I think on the same token several students “got” him.  He had prepared a 6-page, single-spaced document to read to us basically laying out his views on things not only in the film industry, but in life.  Thankfully he’s emailing that piece to us so I’ll be able to post some of his words on here.  He is truly a poet and a lover of art and beauty.  Everything else pales in comparison.  I thought of my brother frequently during Paul’s talk with us.  Alex, an extremist in many senses of the word, sometimes takes his thoughts and opinions too far…but for being a 19-year-old, I am just damn proud that he actually puts thought into things about which other people his age are either careless or ignorant.  Alex – I will forward you Paul Cox’s email as soon as I get it because your thoughts on religion, politics, war, life, value systems, etc. are eerily the same.  I wish you could meet dear Paul, but for now his Word Document words will have to do.
– Came back to our home base in Juan-Les-Pins for the rest of the day in hopes of ridding myself of this phlegmy chest/cough condition.
– Made some depressing phone calls to Duffy – missing him and our dog, Charley.  (Apologies again for my morose nature.  Blame it on Paul Cox who seems to put everything in crystal clear perspective for you.)
– Read a bunch, went to bed, and slept soundly until my next day in France.
to be continued…
*More later.  About to run to the Master Class in Cannes (with the Dardenne Brothers) …. will finish this post and write about my experience with the D. Bros when I return.
-ab
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May 15 2009
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Cannes Film Festival

Yes, I know…I need to post more often

I’ve been busy like you wouldn’t believe.  Take this morning for instance…

I had my alarm set for 8:15AM with the intention of waking up early enough to finish my first article for the online Athens Exchange before heading in to Cannes to catch the 11:30 reprise of last night’s in-competition film, “Fish Tank,” directed by Andrea Arnold.
Well those plans remained in tact long enough for me to fall asleep last night and get woken up by a different phone sound at 8:09AM.  The head professor/director of our program, Dr. Nate Kohn, was calling to inform me that he had arranged for our 25 students to be admitted into the American Pavilion later this afternoon for a dedication they’re doing for Roger Ebert.  I was to immediately get to a working email network (easier said than done in France), email a lady at the Pavilion the names of all our students so she could clear them with Festival security, and print 25 copies of the make-shift invitation from a forwarded gmail chain.  This is how quickly my morning took a complete turn in a new direction.  And such is the life in Cannes.
It has now been four hours since that phone call from Nate and I have checked all of those things off my list and then some…  At noon I had to call the Swedish producer, Carl Molinder, of the movie, “Let The Right One In,” because that’s when his plane was landing in Nice.  We spoke about scheduling a time for him and (I believe) his producing partner, John, to come and talk to our students. He’s calling me back in an hour to confirm the day/time.
Which reminds me…I’m also supposed to reserve a meeting time for our group at 2PM on Sunday to listen to Nate’s life-long friend, director Paul Cox.
P.S. Quite possibly my biggest accomplishment since I’ve been in Cannes so far is walking the strip of hotels along the Croisette, going door-to-door, trying to find a meeting space (room, terrace, large closet, etc.).  The hard part was trying to find a space within our tiny budget of 100euro/hour.  Well, I ended up talking to this old man working the desk at the Hotel Victoria (situated right behind the Hotel Stephanie – formerly the Noga Hilton) at a rate of FREE!  Yes, 0euro/hour is what I got us.  (I’m patting myself on the back AGAIN for this accomplishment…arranged completely in French, I might add).  Anyway, gotta call my old man friend Andre again this morning over at the Hotel Victoria to set up times to meet with the Swedes and Paul Cox.
Okay – it’s now 1PM and I have to book it back up to my apartment to change shirts and splash on some make-up.  Gotta meet the students at 1:45 outside of the Grand Lumiere Theatre to stealthily coordinate our entrance into the American Pavilion for the Ebert dedication.  Oh, and I just found out the trains are on strike (as of an hour and a half ago).  Brilliant.
Soooo…I need to run out of here, ready myself in two seconds’ time, catch a cab to Cannes, celebrate Ebert’s dedication, possibly catch a 5:30PM showing of the Un Certain Regard reprise of “Air Doll” (aka- “Kuki Ningyo,” a Japanese film directed by Kore-Eda Hirokazu).  Then tonight – if the weather holds out (it’s been sprinkling some this morning) – a bunch of us are going to try and attend the ‘Movie on the Beach’ (Cinema de la Plage) where they set up a HUGE movie screen about 10 yards out over the water of the Mediterranean.  They have a couple hundred cloth folding chairs set up in front of it in the sand for one of the most unique viewing experiences you can imagine.  Tonight they’re showing “Pink Floyd: The Wall,” so it will be absolutely awesome if the weather stays on our side.
Okay – gotta run.  I’m late.  Can’t keep Roger waiting.
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