Festival glamour @ Cannes

Time for some glamour on the Cote d’Azur again! Yes, Cannes film festival time! I, as some of you perhaps know, am a bit of a film fanatic, so naturally a couple of nights in Cannes are a must. I have to say though, that Cannes is not my favourite festival as far as seeing movies is concerned. For me, Cannes is mostly about rich people being seen and photographed, and us mere mortals trying to get a glimpse of glamour. Sure, there are plenty of films to see, but one could argue that all the queuing is maybe not worth the effort. Well, I reckon it’s still just about worth it, in the end ;-)





So off we went then, on a public holiday, to try and use some of our Director’s Fortnight tickets (one of the Cannes festivals mere mortals can actually get tickets for). Things were a bit complicated by the fact that the last train was something like 21:10 in the evening (cheers, SNCF), and our film was starting at 19:00 (or something like that). Well, we needn’t have worried – the queue for the film (Michel Gondry’s latest) was just ridiculously long, and we didn’t get in… Oh well, such is life… So we ended up going celebrity-spotting instead (I managed to snap some shots of a guy signing autographs at the Canal+ studio on the Croisette – no idea who it was, though!). After an aperitif at a bar in the port, it was time to catch our train…

On Friday, our dear friend JayJay was arriving in Nice, all the way from Mexico, to spend a few weeks with his darling Marie, before heading over to Iceland for a couple of months of work (he’s a marine biologist – Iceland ought to be a pretty good place to study marine mammals at least, in spite of the decidedly un-Mexican climate!). Since Marie doesn’t have a car, we decided to pick him up and give him a ride to Nice. We spent a rather nice extended aperitif with Marie and JJ, catching up and making ambitious travel plans (me and JJ have some very hazy plans about a kayaking trip from Marseille to Nice – but figured we might go for something a bit less ambitious first). Very nice catching up with JJ again – hopefully we’ll see more of him in September when he’s back on the Riviera!

On Saturday, we decided to venture into Cannes again – we still had those darn tickets to make use of. This time, we headed down to Cannes La Bocca, to another venue. The queue was shorter this time than on Thursday, but we still had no luck! This time, it turned out that the tickets were no good for this venue – they are only valid at the main venue off the Croisette! There you go then… Not about to give up, we made our way back to Palais Stephani, and queued again… Obviously third time is sometimes the charm – we got in this time! We saw the latest film of the late and great Raoul Ruiz, Le Noche de Efrente. I haven’t seen many films by Mr Ruiz, but I loved his last one (the Mysteries of Lisbon). This one, however, was a bit, dare I say, arty-farty for me. Or perhaps I just wasn’t in the right mood for it after all that queuing… Anyways, at least we got to see a movie finally! ;)