Cannes and back again..

Hi folks; sorry for the delay in posting about our Cannes adventures. I'm sure you've all been burning up with anticipation.

We drove to Cannes rather than flying; a jaunt across on the ferry, then a straight drive down to Lyon accompanied by various George Carlin albums. We crashed out in Lyon overnight, and then made the last leg of the journey into Cannes to arrive on Saturday 17th. Soon after arriving at our campsite (yes, we stayed at a campsite. Because we are indie filmmakers and thus poor. We were not the only folks emerging from tents in tuxedos, I can tell you..), we got a text from our friends Jim & Laura (who have just completed an absolutely cracking flick called BANE, which I demand that you check out as soon as you get the opportunity), suggesting that we meet them over by the accreditation booth. After duly picking up our passes we headed off to meet them; we stopped for some grub and a few beers and then headed off towards a beach party thrown in association with South African filmmakers. It was a lovely party that had obviously been carefully planned, but the torrential rain that evening kind of ruined the beach vibe a bit. I got cheerfully smashed on the free booze and chatted to filmmakers from all around the globe. We somehow made it back to the campsite at around 2am, (meeting a very chatty German editor en route, who helped us get the right bus stop!)

On Sunday, we met up with a UK screenwriter called Neth Knowles and went for a recce around the Marche as the bullshit levels in the air at the UK pavilion were hurting our ears. Made the decision to spend the day getting a feel for the place rather than approaching distribs/sales agents. At least sleeping in a tent had minimised my hangover.. We wandered into a buyers' screening of Reeker 2, (despite not actually being buyers), and I can happily report that its far, far better than the original. In the evening, we attended a little function at the Canadian Pavilion before heading out to meet the guys who made The Zombie Diaries, who were out drinking with our old buddy James Fisher from Hellbride. We all ended up at the Petit Majestic (merely a bar, but the main hangout for an awful lot of UK industry folks) where we met the team behind forthcoming Britflick Hotel Caledonia, who were extremely nice guys to chat to. The film sounds like it's going to be storming, too.

Monday rolled around, and it became apparent that it was time to hit the Marche proper. We'd got a list of companies that we were hoping to approach, and we made our way around all three floors of stands selling product from all over the world. The key word, of course, being selling.. Not all of them had the slightest interest in acquiring new stuff. We got some good reactions regardless; mainly from companies who were extremely tired of people coming up and pitching ideas or presales, and were relieved to see a finished film for once. I'll keep the companies that we had the most productive meetings with to myself, if you don't mind; never a good idea to discuss 'might happen' deals in public. There were certainly a couple of companies that impressed us a lot, though, and I hope we get the chance to deal with them in the future.

Cleverly, my notes regarding exactly what we did on a day-to-day basis run out at that point. I'll see if I can break down the rest and fill you in with the rest of our adventures on my next post!