I'm sitting in an airport Starbucks, waiting on a wildly delayed flight, tired, overjoyed, grateful, and in desperate need of a detox week.
For a few days now, when I go to bed, which in Cannes is always in the late hours (I found that the city wakes up at noon and goes to bed at four in the morning, earliest), my mind is racing. I was talking with a couple of colleagues (now great new friends) about how we'd sum up our first year in Cannes with one word; and for me, that'd be educational. I learned a lot, about people, more about how the business works, about festivals, about this specific festival, and just a lot more, too. I never journal, but this time it felt appropriate, as I feel I need to sit down and really sum up all my thoughts. For my benefit, and hopefully for yours, if you haven't been and want to go to Cannes Film Festival.
The Films
What advice would you give to someone who's here for the first time?, I ask a nice producer I met on the street, who said he had been to Cannes over 25 times.
Make sure you see at least one film a day.
It's a film festival.
Honestly - my first three days I didn't see any films. It wasn't for a lack of trying, but it also wasn't like I was queuing up or waking up at 8:00am every day to try and see as much as I could. I was definitely figuring out the general scene in the beginning and the cinema side of things wasn't my focus.
I caught up a bit. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to Sam Levinson's The Idol, which was a gala in the Grand Lumiere and a deeply surreal experience (dare I say: a dream come true), and I saw two films I knew nothing about the following days, one part of the Director's Fortnight and another one part of Un Certain Regard. I learned that in Cannes, it's easy to lose track of what brings everyone together - it's deeply obvious, but that thing is: the movies. Going to screenings definitely reminded me of that, allowed me to keep focused on what matters -- not the party, but the film -- and I felt immense gratitude and honour to be in the centre of it all, with all the film creatives there in the room, too. And it also was amazing to see the respect that the audience gives to the film -- to my surprise, I did enjoy the dressing up and general formality -- and to see just how many people wanted to attend the screennings, but couldn't. It really made me realise just how much love people have for this industry.
Also, it's not that difficult to book tickets while you're there. A lot of people cancel their tickets the day before, so refreshing the website usually does the trick, which I obviously didn't know, or I wouldn't have gotten up at 5:45 five consecutive days to try and book tickets, which, at this point you probably know, wasn't successful at the time.
The Work & The Parties
You need to meet everyone because you don't know who's going to be useful to you, says another man I met in Cannes.
I don't really want to meet everyone. I want to hang out and make friends, if something come from that that's great, if not, fuck it, at least I've met some awesome people. Good people are easy to meet.
The pavilions are a great place, but they are more a place where you hold existing meetings, not where you meet new people for upcoming meetings. It took me a few days to figure that out, and once I did, the work became more and more productive. There is a massive area where production companies and distribution companies have set up booth-like spaces, where you can chat to the execs, which sounds very useful, but isn't really - a lot of them are selling their own products, and the distribution companies are quite niche. I think horror or fantasy could sell easier in that space, but drama not so much.
Obviously, a massive part of Cannes is networking. It definitely is 100% the easiest place to talk to someone new, I've never felt more comfortable walking up to strangers, and talking to new people is not really in my comfort zone, but it definitely felt more accessible here. Most people you meet not in the day, but in the night, to be honest, or through other people you know already. The day is more for set business, the night is for new connects. I mostly enjoyed the party side of Cannes (selfishly) but not because I was 'making contacts', just because I was meeting some awesome people (usually awesome, I'll get to that) and hanging out with them. The nights are fun, but the days are meaningful - especially the last few days, when I felt more confident and knowledgable of what was going on.
The Creative Side
Let’s shoot something real quick, says Joe.
Yeah, I’m down, now that you’re here.
I was lucky enough to have one of the producers on my feature there in Cannes with us for a few days (best guy in the world, Joseph Bushell) and we actually got through a lot of stuff together and managed to work on the creative side of things a bit, too. But - if he wasn't there, I'd say it'd be very difficult to focus on being creative in Cannes. There's too much noise -- too much business talk -- too much happening. It's very businessy, all the time. Me and Joe had a couple of meetings at 2am, not formal ones, but such that still had to do with work, in Cannes you're kinda always working, while also never really working. Even writing down thoughts at the end of the night felt impossible because I was so exhausted after a full day of new experiences. It's a very inspiring place to do business, but a really difficult one to focus on being creative, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all - there's a time and a place for everything.
The days I spent with Joe were my favorite days because we were the most productive and it definitely helped me keep track of why were are there. Next year, if I go again, the only thing I'd do different maybe is I would go with more people who are actively involved in Look Aside projects because I think that would allow for less small talk and more concentrated work. The meetings me and Joe were lucky enough to have (all with incredibly people, might I add) were super enjoyable because we were together and we were talking about a specific project.
The People
The best and the worst people in the industry are here in Cannes, I say.
I agree, says pretty much everyone.
Before going, I did think there would be more people I'd dislike than like, I thought there would be a lot of big fish acting not-so-nice to be honest, which was actually definitely not the case - around 80% of everyone we met was lovely and I had a genuinely awesome time talking to them. More so on a human level, I'll get to that.
And yes, as in any industry, there are hacks and crooks and odd individuals. We were speaking with a friend and we said, those people probably attract each other, so we were lucky enough not to spend a lot of time with such individuals, but they are there, and when they come up to you, you know immediately who they are. Most of these people are not there to work - they pretend they are, but not really - they are there to have a fun time and maybe get a little something done here and there. They don't love film, they love the lifestyle of a movie star. And some of them are probably very successful, too, and good on them, I genuinely mean that. But again -- those people were not as many as I imagined, most people I met were lovely and even some of the bigger names I spoke to, almost all of them were super down to earth and really really nice.
In retrospect:
My favorite thing about Cannes? Just the fact that I went. It's literally a once in a lifetime experience to go to Cannes for the first time (duh!) and I will never forget the last couple of days. I've learned so much about the industry and I leave more focused to keep track of what the right path is than ever before.
My favorite experience in Cannes? The human experiences. Talking to strangers about them, not about their work. Getting to know the person, not the professional. I met some people I have only worked with before and I honestly feel like now, after Cannes, I made a new friend -- not a business connection, something better. I also met some people I've never met before and we just chatted about our lives instead of our work, that was awesome, too. Cannes is a place where people are more open than anywhere else, and when that bleeds into being more open as a person instead of as someone who just works in the industry, those were the moments I loved most. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Don Anderson, who is Exec Producing my first feature, and a lot of the creatives he works with, too, and those late nights chatting about life and art with all those people were amazing. And to Don, who was my partner in crime in this Cannes venture, and who is the nicest, sweetest, most generous man in the world (I know he's reading this), I am deeply grateful for bringing me along an incredible journey and supporting me in making art the right way.