Alex de Campi: Gojira!

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17.5.06 Cannesblog, Day 1

I forgot how magical it is to arrive in Cannes; the air heavy with hope and jasmine, everyone with a happy, slightly incredulous smile on their faces, and a dream in their heart... Of course, this first-day bliss sours as the festival goes on. Never stay until the end; dreams fly on wings of glass and so many are shattered over the next 10 days. Nothing is more sordid than the sight of the hotel hallways on the 28th of May, like the aftermath of the Somme if the trenches were made of discarded scripts and the shards of hopes of people like me. Still, one can only try.

I shall try to blog as much of the Cannes experience as I can, from my adopted home base in the American Pavilion; providing of course anything of interest happens.

We got out of post on the trailer very late; I was literally still burning DVDs half an hour after I was supposed to leave for the airport. So although I know a bunch of people here, I have set up not a single meeting. My entire Cannes strategy consists of wearing pretty dresses, blagging party and screening invites, and forcing people to watch my film trailer on my iPod Video. And right now, on this first day when there are no screenings yet to hide in and with none of my friends/housemates here yet, I feel the first ticklings of a fear... what am I doing here? Will this be a big waste of time, spending money on beer? I love my film, and believe we can create a great, memorable, commercially marketable thriller with some very innovative imagery... but can I make anyone care? Or even make myself heard?

Cannes is hell for actors and writers. There's not much love for directors, either: it's an industry market first and foremost, for deals between producers with finished (or nearly finished) material and distributors. But there are a lot of directors here - met three lovely ones (including Sean Flynn, who just finished a short called Numb with James Duvall - envy!) and a publicist on the way in from Nice airport, as we clubbed together on a 5-person taxi. We nerded out about cameras, me as usual defending HDCam to the filmheads. And I made everyone watch my trailer. I'm shameless.

But this is Cannes: huge highs and huge lows, plus passionate and occasionally deeply technical conversations about the art and craft of the moving image, all in the glorious sunshine of the South of France. Wish me luck, me and my little film and my wings of glass.

The Publishers' Weekly article on Tokyopop's new line launches is up; here's a direct link. Both the books featured (Kat & Mouse and Agent Boo) are by me, so of course I couldn't be more pleased with it!

Off to queue for Da Vinci Code tickets. I know it's going to be appalling, but hey, it's the opening gala screening. More tomorrow.

( 11:40 AM )

1 Comments:

hi~friend~

By fish, at 12:16 PM