Tag Archives: www.athensexchange.com

May 20 2009
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Cannes Film Festival, Guest Speakers, Red Carpet, UGA Students, Visitors

Slacking

I promise to finish writing about the last few days.  I have seen three new movies that I am dying to tell you about among many other things.  So I will include all of this when I finish posting later tonight (afternoon – your time).

For now, though, I’m going to take a break from this blogging business to take care of some REAL business over here.  I have to:
– Get back in touch with film critic, Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune), about speaking with our students this Friday evening.  And since it seems like our good fortune has run out at the Hotel Victoria (their hospitality for our “free” meetings lasted only so long) I must book another place for us to meet with our guest speakers.  Luckily, I found a super swanky hotel right across the street from the Victoria that looks like it’ll work.  Need to get back in touch with the manager there and book a time/menu for us on Friday (they’re charging us in food/drinks instead of a base price….which I can appreciate).
– I also have two friends in town who arrived via train last night.  They have backpacked through 5 countries in the past week.  That makes me tired to think about.  So now they’re shacking at my place in Juan-Les-Pins to slow down their pace for a few days of R&R on the beach.  I think I may join them for a couple hours this afternoon.
– While sunning in the sand today I also need to jot some ideas down for my next article on athensexchange.com since I have left them hanging since last week.  I feel really bad, but the business of Cannes has consumed my life and left little time for solid, reflective writing.  I will give it my best effort later today, though.
– Tonight is the red carpet premiere of the in-competition Tarantino film, “Inglorious Basterds,” starring Brad Pitt.  The Croisette is going to be CROWDED tonight because everyone will want a glimpse of Brangelina.  Most of our students are going to beg the hardest they’ve begged so far for a ticket to tonight’s screening, I know.  While I would love to be in there with Brangey and ‘tino, I think the chaos would be more than I could handle in heels.  Instead I think my visiting friends and I will don some long-sleeve tees and flops to observe the red carpet from afar and then hit up the laid-back movie on the beach with a make-shift picnic on a blanket.  That is much more my speed these days.
– Then hopefully tonight I can muster up enough energy to finish posting about the last few days.  I’ll channel “The Little Engine That Could” as much as humanly possible (“…I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..”).
Until tonight, mes amis…   A bientot!
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May 15 2009
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Cannes Film Festival, Reflections, Shoutout

My First Contribution to ATHENS EXCHANGE

I am contributing to this online Athens Exchange site about my experiences while in Cannes and I submitted my first article to them this morning.  My contact point for the site told me he read my entry as more of a “blog”-type style (go figure), so he posted it under that section of the site.  Anyway, you can find it here :
There’s more to come from me on http://www.athensexchange.com AS WELL AS on this blog.  Mark my words!
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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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