A Belated Cannes Experience Wrap-Up
What it felt like to be in the ritziest film festival on earth
It has been about six weeks since I’ve returned from Cannes. I was lucky to be the faculty director of this year’s Penn-in-Cannes program, and brought 30 wide-eyed and bushy-tailed undergrads to the festival… where I proceeded to leave the bulk of the chaperone-ing to the beloved senior administrator, Nicola, while delivering a few lectures and generally observing the ins and outs of the festival wracked with communist guilt. And of course I did watch 32 films in 10 days. And got COVID, at some point (as did, I think, everyone, a fact that I have not yet seen discussed).
I can (and did, and continue) to talk people’s ears off about the films I loved (Anora! Bird!), didn’t have strong feelings about (The Apprentice, Motel Destino), and absolutely hated (Oh, Canada; The Shrouds). Certainly, the main reason people go to what was frequently described as “the best screen on earth” is the films. But it’s not the only reason; indeed many seemed to go to Cannes to see celebrities, to look glamorous, and, more than anything, to make money. I attempted to observe the festival from a quasi-detached anthropological perspective, and thought it might be interesting to describe exactly what it’s like to go to this bizarre place— especially since (largely for reasons of university bureaucracy) it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to go again.
First of all, not just anyone can go to Cannes, and it’s impossible to buy one-off tickets. There are badges (“accreditations”) for filmmakers and industry folks, and by a bizarre feat of longtime wheel-greasing, the students and I got “Marché du Film” passes, which really just means film market. The fact that none of us has any ability to purchase distribution for any film whatsoever apparently does not matter.
For those of us with badges, the first stressors of the film festival begin, actually, 4 days before the festival. The ticketing website went live on this date, and, starting at 7 AM Paris time— or 1 AM New York Time, ugh— tickets became available for the first day of the festival. So, 1 AM four days before the official beginning of the festival, my partner and I found ourselves feverishly refreshing the page trying to grab tickets to one of the screenings on the first day. I waffled on whether or not to see the 4-hour Abel Gance Napoleon, and my few minutes of trepidation caused me to lose my ticket. Alas, this anxiety would continue through almost the very end of the festival, since each morning only saw the release of tickets 4 days in the future. Figuring out this system already took some time, and it’s very easy to catastrophize. Sometimes through the luck of the draw, one gets all the tickets one wishes. Sometimes, none. A lot of groaning and screaming ensues. Adding to the frustration was the realization that everyone with accreditation did not hold equal place in line; rather, some names are pushed higher up on the rankings, and some lower. I discovered that my place on the ranking, thanks to more morally ambiguous wheel-greasing (whose inner workings I am entirely not privy to), is above most other film market first-timers, and significantly higher than my own students. Once they learned of this there was a near-mutiny— and this was quite understandable, since I’m getting a small stipend teaching them this course and fundamentally get to go for free, while they have to pay 10k for a class that basically teaches them to run around begging for tickets. Thankfully, the students proved to be tenacious, and ended up scoring significantly more of the “fancier” tickets than I did.
You see, only one particular theatre was the “fancy” one— the aforementioned best screen in the world, the Grand Theatre Lumiere. This is where the In Competition films premiered. After 6 PM, any premiere held at this theatre required black tie attire. The dress code is more strictly enforced for the big time premieres— i.e. Coppola, Lanthimos, etc— and taking selfies (or any photos) on the red carpet is strictly prohibited for these (although my students seemed to do a good job of secretly snagging a few). Premiere tickets are incredibly hard to get, and pretty much unavailable with the usual ticketing system. However, every so often someone will relinquish their premiere ticket on the online platform, so much of Cannes is actually spent staring into a phone constantly refreshing a browser. I did this for about 1.5 hours straight one day to finally snatch tickets to the premiere of Cronenberg’s Shrouds, and although it felt surreal to be in the same theatre as the man himself, I’m not sure the tendonitis was really worth it to be bored next to hundreds of other people in (what are essentially) prom dresses and tuxedos.
All this to say that the ticketing system in itself is enough to give anyone an aneurysm, especially if you’re already prone to perfectionism and anxiety. Every evening at some point my partner and I spent about an hour debating which films seemed good for four days in the future, and created a “plan of attack”— which films to try to grab first, and which would probably be available 30-40 seconds later. Then every morning we would wake up at 6:45 AM, blearily grabbing our computers, and would, by 6:55, start refreshing the ticketing website until a mysterious countdown appeared. And even before we arrived in Cannes: because our flight from Philly happened to be in the air during this sacred ticket-reserving time, we had to buy WiFi to spend the early morning refreshing and refreshing and refreshing again, to only moderate success.
All this stress might have been worth it for those who were easily affected by the glamour of the red carpet, but most of the time, I couldn’t care less. The great thing about our badges was that they allowed us to watch “catch-up” screenings, especially near the tail end of the festival. As the festival went on, these screenings appeared for In Competition films in nearby (non-fancy) venues, and they didn’t require a ticket for entry— just a badge. So, as long as you were willing to wait an hour to an hour-and-a-half in line before the film, you were virtually guaranteed entry to these screenings. But of course, the appeal of Cannes to many was being the first people— ever— to watch the entirety of the film (besides the director, of course). In fact, Sean Baker, this year’s (well-deserved!) winner of the Palme d’Or, was editing Anora up to the very last second, and the fact that I was lucky enough to be one of the very few to watch it for the very first time, on any screen, in the world— is, well, pretty damn magical.
But, if you didn’t need this particular type of magic, there were plenty of other ways to catch what the Penn-in-Cannes senior administrator described as “Cinema Fever.” (Unfortunately many of us caught a very literal fever, since the French started sniffling and sneezing with nary a single face mask in sight about 5 days into the festival… but that’s another story). Many of my favorite films were not actually the In Competition films, but in one of the parallel competitions, like Director’s Fortnight, or Un Certain Regard. How films are slotted into one or other competition is exceedingly obscure. It seems like the In Competition films tended to be created by mostly already-famous directors, or films with an incredibly large budget and an art film panache. But honestly, it seemed quite random. Two favorites of mine from the Un Certain Regard section, Julie Zwijgt (discussed previously on this Substack) and Ljosbrot, seemed light years ahead of most of the In Competition films in terms of overall quality. But, alas, especially at Cannes, money really makes the world go round.
It was the money, really, and how obviously it was on display— everywhere— that gave me the ick (as the kids say) more than anything else. I heard Russian around town almost as often as French— and mind you, these were not intellectual elites, these were wannabe supermodels and oligarch attachés (perhaps the same breed of oligarchs featured in Anora, hmm!). Every red carpet moment had its fair share of overly-made-up postSoviet nothing-whatsoevers in outrageous attire, pausing for endless photos before finally being ushered into the Lumiere. These people would frequently leave a few minutes into a film, which angered me more than anything else about the festival (how many people I know would give an arm and a leg to be in this seat, and you’re just here for the photos?!) At some point I taught my partner a very fun game of “spot the Russian” (bottle blonde? check. gratuitous plastic surgery? check. tasteless logo-branded clothing, especially Karl Lagerfeld? check. (If I seem anti-Russian here, puh-lease: I was born in Kyiv, Russian was my first language, I’m allowed).
One of the reasons the model-wannabes even entered the screenings at all was because the festival implemented a pretty strict system: if you don’t get your ticket scanned (not just by the entrance but also right before you enter the orchestra/balcony etc), you get a “no-show,” and receive a pretty scary email warning. Two “no-shows” in a single day, and you can no longer reserve tickets for 24 hours. This means that attendees do all they can to prevent getting no-shows, which is how most of my students were able to get into premieres— by begging for tickets directly outside of the Grand Lumiere, hoping some quasi-famous (or at least rich) person wouldn’t want a no-show and would airdrop them a screenshot of the ticket PDF. In my estimation my students were successful 50% of the time, which climbed closer to 100 the skinner, conventionally prettier, whiter, younger, and femme-er they were (to no one’s surprise). (Universities should probably do a better job not teaching students to fall into what is basically sex-work-lite to get premiere tickets, but I suppose that’s just how the sausage is made.) At least they stayed off the yachts.
While many of my students were excited to see celebs throughout the fest, I admit I didn’t really notice any of them… but I also wasn’t necessarily looking. I congratulated some of the supporting actors in Anora while they were smoking a post-screening cigarette, and chatted at length with one of the actors, Francisco Visceral (also the film’s artistic director and set designer!) in one of the most genuinely antifascist films of the festival, The Hyperboreans (unfortunately this film was the most universally reviled films for my students, for whom the film’s magic realism and relentless reflexivity went way way over their heads). This was one of the most magical moments for me, though— talking to this Chilean artist-comrade and sharing how strange it was for both of us to walk around in this capitalist dream-land, simultaneously struck with cinephile wonder and also wanting, very much, to set the entire place on fire.
There is more to write about the festival and all of its beauty and its insanity (intensity?), but I will leave you, for now, with these sketchbook images I made, usually quickly scrawled between screenings and probably while trying to shove a saucisson sec sandwich directly into my face… or, trying to escape the madness in my lovely rented fisherman’s apartment, eating farmer’s market fruits and lamenting the state of American produce.