Cannes, Mon Amour: The French Film Festival is a Beautiful Circus!
And — How I Got My 15 Minutes of Fame…
The Cannes Film Festival is once again unleashed upon the French Riviera, bringing with it its Carnivalesque sense of joy, possibility and crassness. This year will probably bring its usual scandals, beautiful people, paparazzi, wannabees, con men and hucksters, filling the joints, the clubs and the bars, hotels and clubs all. It is an event sometimes vulgar and ridiculous — but also a place of unexpected magic.
I know, because I got to go there in 2014 with my first film and I got to be part of that Circus. Marcello Mastroianni, the great Italian actor, was the first familiar face I saw. His image loomed above the Palais, along the infamous Le Croisette and seemed to beam down with a special magnanimity towards me. “Hello, old friend,” I said.
Let’s Put on a Show!
The run up to Cannes had been frenetic, starting with the miracle that I had actually produced and directed a film. Making the film had been a terrifying and stomach churning, for as all filmmakers know, it’s easy to go over budget, especially in my case when the budget was zero. On a whim, when my script for “Here’s Looking at you, Kid” a short spoof of Casablanca, had won a screenwriting award, and I realized it…
