05/14/10 Bonjour !!!

Hey guys, we woke up this morning at 6:00 am our time, about 11-12ish (midnight) there, and made our way to the train station. After about 30 minutes on the train we made it to Cannes, and then walked through the town towards the festival. We got there very early, and it seemed to be a ghost town. We are planning to leave a little later tomorrow.

There was a giant carnival surrounding the festival, though we were too focused on getting into the festival to look around, well see if we can’t do more of that tomorrow. All the street barriers from the premier of Robin Hood were still up. We made our way to the accreditation office, and received our badges, as well as, our Cannes bags. The Cannes bag was filled with programs as to what was screening and whether or not we needed an invitation to get into it.



We walked further into the building and asked about where the Short Film Corner was, and were told that it didn’t open until 9. With 30 minutes to kill we sought out the American Pavilion. We managed to find it, though were unsure if we could go in. We decided to sit down for a minute, while Miles got a snack.

He ordered two hotdog, cheese, and ham sandwiches, unsure of how big they were. Much to his surprise both were massive, and he could only eat half of one. Once done, we held our heads high and walked right pasted the security, apparently walking with purpose goes a long way. We walked over to the front of the American Pavilion were we met 2 other American film students, and Walter Harris.



We introduced ourselves to him, and talked briefly about our lack of where to go. He assured us that if we were apart of the American Pavilion that wouldn’t be a problem. He told us there was a fee for a day, and for the remainder of the festival. Miles and I believe that we will take part in it tomorrow, as there are many lectures and benefits that can come from it.

At 9 we made our way to the Short Film Corner. Though still empty, we found something worth doing. We sat and watched some of the other films that made it in, and were impressed at how good some were, and also distraught at others. We must have watched about 30 short films before taking off to explore more of the corner.

There was a section for screenings, where Miles and I are going to try and book one for a drink bar, and a lecture room. While we walked past there was a lecture in session, the contents seemed uninteresting, and a majority of it was in French.

We made our way through the March du Cinema section, which encompassed a large amount of small cubical like booths, filled with movie posters, flat screen TV’s playing previews, and very nice chairs. A few of the posters caught our eyes, some of them were extremely humorous, and other actually looked very interesting. We then got lost in this section, and for about 20 minutes couldn’t find our way out. Finally, after about ten more minutes of random movie posters featuring Japanese Armageddon, Zombie-Alien-Neo Nazi’s, and what would seem to be Greek Power Rangers, we found the door outside and made our exit.

We took a moment to try and plan what to do next. We sat out in the courtyard where, much like in Hollywood, there were sidewalk tiles with famous names and handprints on them. We noticed that Olivier Stone’s film Wall Street was going to be screening in a few hours, and in order to see it we needed invitations.



Up set by this, we continued hard trying to find and interesting screening we could get into. On the television, live from the back lot of the festival we saw that the Wall Street cast was lining up to get to their screening. In attendance was Oliver Stone, Michael Douglas, Shiloh La Boef and company. Though we tried to crash their photo session, our admittance was not allowed.

We managed to find a screening in one of the Grand Auditoriums, and ran to the line to get in. After waiting for about 10 minutes they let us in, and we ran into the theater. It was packed!! We made about three circulations around the whole theater, but here were no seats left, aside from the ones that had reserved on them. With only 5 minutes left, we made the choice to walk out, because sitting on the floor was acceptable.

After leaving, we made our way back to Nice for the night, where we both dropped and napped for about 4 hours. We then went out to dinner and had French style pizza.

Miles and I are now planning out tomorrow, in hopes that everything will go more smoothly, and we will be able to enjoy a little bit more then today. We are now relaxing, and still recovering from a mad dose of jet lag.

Please excuse the lack of photos today; I was over whelmed by everything that was going on. More stories to come, talk with you later.

Rob & Miles