This year (2005) ‘Diary of a Bad Lad’ was one of the ten British films, including shorts and documentaries, submitted to the Cannes selectors by the British Council in March. We had no idea if we were going to strike it lucky, but we did have ‘official’ backing and there are precedents for similar films not only being selected, but also carrying off prizes in previous years, so we had no alternative other than to start looking for flights and accommodation.
The Cannes film festival is run by ‘UniFrance’, which is their equivalent of the British Council, so the festival is riddled with international, national and local politics. Strained relationships over issues ranging from Iraq to the Common Agricultural Policy have meant that the last two years have been very bad for British films at Cannes.
What’s Cannes really like?
Cannes presents a public face of being a film festival, but it isn’t, it’s a film market. This means that it’s geared to buyers and sellers – to producers and distributors. The festival site itself occupies the town centre end of the promenade (La Croisette) next to the harbour/marina where a vast flotilla of 90 ft power cruisers are moored stern to the quayside – and some of these may represent merely part of the pre-production spend on a middle-budget planned feature. The big-budget players ‘yachts’ are moored out in the bay. The total value of all this nautical hardware may be as much as the GDP of one of the world’s poorest countries.
Next to the marina is the ‘Palais des Festival’ which contains quite a few screens. Behind this is the market hall, which also has quite a few small theatres ranging between around 35 to 90 seats and which can be hired for ‘market screenings’. Next to this complex, backing onto the beach, are the ‘pavilions’ – large marquees run by various country’s equivalents of the British Council plus one run by Kodak – which is a bit more like the students union as it provides free beverages.
All of this complex is located behind steel barriers manned by security staff who only allow people with accreditation passes to pass through, so it pays to have a pass. Most of the people with passes hang about in the pavilions during the daytime – the UK’s is not bad and provides free internet services as well as information on who’s there and where to find them, and go partying at night. And most of them pride themselves on the fact that, in all the years that they’ve been coming to Cannes, they’ve never seen a film there. Why? Because it’s a market – it’s about money and networking. If you want to go and enjoy yourself at a film festival, go to Karlovy Vary. Old hands at the festival tend to fly in for a few days, see the people they want to see, and fly out again.
Accreditation
If it’s your first time you’ll have to get accreditation. This takes place on line. If you apply as a producer you shouldn’t have too much of a problem – but any of your assistant producers will be turned down flat. Applications from Directors and DOP’s go through to the appropriate French professional associations and this tends to work out OK. You might have thought that it’d be good to take your leading actor and actress along, but they’ll only get it if they send a mountain of documentation, letters from the agents and so on, and there’s still no guarantee. You can also apply, as producer or director, under the ‘Short Film Corner’ – submit a short and you’ll get a pass.
What happens if I enter a film for the festival?
The selections are made from films which come with some form of ‘official’ backing. If yours hasn’t got this then you are donating your fee to the festival. Even with official backing your chances are incredibly slim indeed. What’s more the organisers are so rude that they won’t tell you that your film has been rejected.
Is it worth buying a screening in the market?
First of all what’s involved in doing this is getting in several months before hand and sending UniFrance a few hundred Euro’s to buy a slot. They decide when that slot will be, so it could be at 4pm on the last day of the festival. But is worth getting in early and buying a screening, and will you get out of it anymore than being able to tell the gullible that your film was shown at Cannes? To answer this you have to understand how market screenings work. Festival screenings are for Joe public. Market screenings are for buyers – for people with passes only. A film which is on in the festival may have three or four market screenings booked so that buyers have a choice when it comes to arranging their schedules. You think of buying one lousy slot, but you’ve got to get buyers there, so you have to advertise your screening in the daily ‘trades’ by buying a full page in colour. Somewhere on the ad you’ll have to list the sales contact – and if that’s your name as well then it sends a message that none of the sales companies have picked it up so it must be crap. And there’s no point in littering the pavilions and the market hall with flyers as you won’t find any of the major players there, they’re all located elsewhere.
Where are the major players?
The major players have all hired suites in luxury hotels on the Croisette which they have temporarily kitted out as offices. The British Council stand is an excellent place for finding out which hotels they’re in and which entryphone button to press at the door. Organisations, such as FilmFour, with less money to burn than the major sales agents and distributors rent less salubrious apartments. Getting to talk to these people is pretty easy – you just ring the bell, go up in the lift to the appropriate floor, walk in, ask to make an appointment and that’s pretty much it – and they have much more time during the second week of the market. At least you’ll get your face known, but your guess is as good as mine as to whether they will ever watch your DVD or look at your press pack.
This all sounds pretty depressing…So why go in the first place?
Yes, it is. In fact it reminded me more of the Southampton Boat Show than a film festival. Still, it’s very interesting to discover that the industry world-wide is run by maybe less than 7,000 people, that most of the major players seem to have little interest in watching films, nor in scouting for emerging talent – so Cannes is the most intensive crash course in seeing the industry at ‘work’. If you network hard all the time you will make a lot of contacts and come back feeling as if you are at least recognised as being ‘somebody’. But you also need to remember that, for the best part of two weeks all of these people are there in the same place and they expect to be talking to people, so it actually costs you less to go and talk to them in Cannes than fork out on going to London only to find out that ‘something’s come up and Mr So-and-so won’t be able to see you’… So, what’s it cost?
At around £50 flights are very cheap if booked in advance. Accommodation in Cannes itself is a real headache. But, don’t forget, the festival takes place in the middle of May which isn’t exactly high season on the rest of the Cotes d’Azur. Look for accommodation in the next town along the coast, for example Golfe Juan where at least two-thirds of the accommodation is empty. It could cost you as little as £12-15 per night self-catering, but French bureaucracy is such that you’ll get an additional bill for taxes and various services when you leave. Virtually all the accommodation is only available by the week, which runs from Saturday-Saturday. Public transport is very good and very, very cheap, so it’s no problem getting in and out of Cannes. Eating out is excellent – and pretty cheap – and a sandwich in Cannes does not cost the earth at all.
