The best thing about film festivals is that everyone in the industry is circulating in the same square mile and you can’t help but bump into people for impromptu meetings of the minds. You greet one another with “What did you see today” and next question, “What did you see that you liked?”
Chance meetings on the street, drop-ins to sales companies and rendezvouses with filmmakers:
I met up with an L.A.-based filmmaking couple who were flown in at the last minute by an investor who is commissioning them to write a script and possibly produce it. They filled me in on production tax incentives in Louisiana (apparently the current global leader in such programs – out of state filmmakers can actually monetize their credits for cash!) and other locations offering some attractive opportunities.The industrious duo also hit the market to meet with sales agents for their in-the-can horror film comedy, “The Selling.” As any good filmmaker these days should, they had a promo for the film cut and ready to roll on their laptop.
From what I could tell, this haunted-house spoof looked pretty funny and well produced. I talked it up later at dinner with programmers from FrightFest UK and Fantastic Fest, since festival conversation should be riddled with hot tips and insider’s knowledge.
My new friends also told me that when I came to meet them, I had just missed a very funny brawl outside the Tawaiinese Cinema booth that had one guy pinning another up against the wall. Collections issues? A deal gone bad? Too many days inside the Cannes Marche du Film?
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A visit to Celluloid Dreams’ suite landed tickets to the premiere of the very mixed-reaction Takashi “Beat” Kintano yakuza gorefest “Outrage” — and the reassurance that festival films from a number of top film festivals and distributors worldwide will be available on The Auteurs website for viewing.Celluloid Dreams’ Matthieu Boucher and Anne-Sophie Lehec were in Cannes signing up festivals and rights holders to be a part of this international platform they operate in partnership with Criterion (USA) and Costa Films (South America).
Autuers.com is the first international VOD platform with an advanced social network, recommendation engine and library of the best of world cinema. It is fully integrated with Facebook and Twitter and is even compatible with Playstation 3!
As of the printing of their Cannes brochure, they had 250,000 registered members and more than 1,000 films online in non-exclusive streaming VOD deals.*
A dinner invitation (accepted at the last minute when we didn’t get into Stephen Frears’ "Tamara Drewe") with a French producer friend from L.A. and some of his childhood friends included the brother of the producer of the excellent competition film “Of God and Men” (“Un Hommes et Des Dieux”). From the same producer as last year’s acclaimed Cannes Film Festival premiere, "A Prophet," it’s already getting whispers that it could well be France’s official entry for the Oscars.
Another dinner companion made arrangements for us to go to Kinology the next day, where we were treated to a trailer for the French production of “Sarah’s Key,” an adaptation of Tatiana de Rosnay’s bestselling novel, starring Kristin Scott Thomas. About the modern day discovery of a Jewish family’s secret dating back to World War II, it will start screening for buyers in June.
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Several of the programmers in Cannes to see genre films were somewhat impressed with the Critics’ Week film “Rubber,” a sort of supernatural French thriller about a rubber tire that comes to life and gets downright destructive.
A late-night conversation on Rue D’Antibes with a theater programmer:
Him: “Did the tire show up at the press conference for Rubber?”
Me: “Yes and it had more to say than Godard.”
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Godard notoriously didn’t show up as scheduled for his press conference for “Film Socialisme,” sending a cryptic note to offer his condolences that stated that he would not be in Cannes “for reasons the Greeks would understand.”
I watched enough of Godard’s latest film out of deference to my film school teachers, to determine that I never wanted to set foot on a cruise ship (his location). I also got a tip that a three-hour documentary on “Autobiografia Lui Nicolae Ceausescu” the Romanian dictator was quite good, and another that the Lodge Kerrigan (“Clean Shaven,” “Keane”) film “Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) is Lodge Kerrigan doing an homage to the films of Lodge Kerrigan.
And that is the literal — word on the street in Cannes.
