May 17-19

It's been awhile since we I've had the time to blog, time has become scarce once the festival really started to get under way. I can't remember the last time that I had time to sit down and comfortably eat breakfast. Tonight is the first night that I haven't seen a film or have gone out and I'm really excited to do nothing tonight. I'm going to try and remember what I've done in the past three days through random memories, pictures, and notes. It's almost unbelievable that we've been here an entire week already, the days have all started to blend together. So this post is going to be a sort of rambling attempt to recall everything that's happened.

I've met a lot of really great people, oddly (or perhaps not) Aliza and I have really gravitated towards the other Nebraskan Film Studies majors, Thomas and Alannah. We've had a lot of classes together and always talk about Dr. Dixon, Dr. Foster, and Dr. Abel and the classes we've taken with them. One night a Nebraskan hang out spontaneously happened at the Pavilion, and it was great. I feel like all the film studies majors at UNL would love to hang out with each other, but the style of our classes (watch a movie then write about it) doesn't really fit with getting to know each other. It's very "one your own work." We had a couple of beers to celebrate Thomas' birthday then we went to Amour Fou. It's a German film about a poet that attempts to convince a woman he loves, but who is married to another man, to commit suicide with him. The cinematography was brilliant, every shot looked so neatly composed and symmetrical, and the colors were bright, but didn't distract. It was sort of a ironic juxtaposition given the subject matter. It was funny, in a really dry and German way. Although I enjoyed the film, I felt like it could've been thirty minutes and it would've had the same impact. After the film, we went back to the apartments and hung out on Thomas' porch with a couple bottles of wine and watched the glow of Cannes in the distance and the moon reflecting on the sea.

Saturday started off with a ribbon cutting with America Ferrera at the Pavilion to promote How To Train Your Dragon 2 and to open the American Pavilion (officially). As a member of the PR team, I had to cover it through Twitter and Facebook. I kept wanting to go to the short film corner and the Marche, but work makes it tough to get enough time. It's been awhile since I've been able to go to a premiere on the red carpet, but honestly I don't care. A lot of the movies have been the same: lots of wide shots and a lagging plot. Timbuktu has been the only film to really blow me away thus far. I finally managed to check out the short film corner and watch what my peers have made. Some are really good and are very encouraging. Sitting at the computer, I can't help but be inspired to continue filmmaking.

That night my roommates and I went to the screening of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on the beach. Seeing that film on the big screen in that place was unreal. I'm never not impressed by it.

I've stopped caring about trying to meet connections at parties. I came to Cannes expecting to meet influential producers and directors who could promise me a job after college so I could work my way into the industry and get my foot in the door. But I've found that I hate the business aspect of film. People hand each other business cards in the hopes that someone will have enough pull to raise their contact out of the nothingness where we all sit. We are all trying to climb, grasping at a paper wall covered in forgettable names that crumbles whenever you dig your fingers into it, but always hoping that the next hand full will have one solid support. And maybe we'll reach the top of where ever we're climbing. But I don't think there's a top to be reached. It's an endless climb to sign your name at the limit of your potential, just to show you've made it higher than the rest.

The next morning, Sunday, Thomas, Aliza, and I went to the 8:30 showing of The Homesman, directed by Tommy Lee Jones. It was very disappointing. That's not to say I didn't like it, but I feel like it was poorly executed. It's the story of a woman, Mary Bee Cuddy, trying to take three women who have gone insane from rape, economic failure, and the deaths of her babies from Nebraska territory to Iowa with the reluctant help of a man, George Briggs, that she rescued. It was well shot, but it came off as a degrading film for women. I'm not going to spoil anything, which is my way of saying that I don't have the time to write all my feelings on it as that would take a day to do, but it needs some work to get the right message across. I have faith that Tommy Lee Jones was making a statement on the Western genre and how the roles of women are still in dire need of adjusting, but I don't know if I'm just desperately hoping that's the case. Afterwards, we didn't really have much to say. I think we needed to soak in what we just watched and contemplate.

Later that night Garrett and I went to a screening of LA Chienne (The Bitch) by Jean Renoir. If there's anything that I can say about this experience, it's that I'm absolutely happy to be meeting my peers. I care more about knowing the people in our group than any of the producers or climbers at Cannes. The people that I get along with, I really get along with. We have so much in common and there's so much to learn about each other, every time we hang out I'm always surprised what I find out about them. I want to work with them, I want to see movies with them, I want to have drinks with them, they are all some of the best people I've met. And it's a shame that we are going to have leave each other at the end of the festival because I'd love to have to chance to see each of them every day for the rest of the summer. But I have the feeling that we will see each other again, that we are going to stay connected for the rest of our careers/lives.

Monday, it seems like everyone has hit the wall. Everyone is tired and the weather reflects our exhaustion. It's the first rainy day in Cannes and it's cold and windy. I didn't see any movies today and work was stressful. A few of us had planned to see a film after dinner, I'm too tired to look it up, but we decided to get a bottle of wine and chill in Aliza's room for a night of relaxing and recharging. There was also a small mentor party there and Courtney, my mentor, talked to us about how we're feeling. We explained how the business of film is discouraging and how Cannes has shown both the beautiful and grotesque nature of the industry. We talked philosophy, life goals, school, random things. She encouraged us to find our own paths and not to buy in to the decadence. It was a well needed talk to set us at ease. Cannes is hard to define and I'm not in the mental state to try tonight. There's a lot that I still have to say, but I'll save it for another time.

Tomorrow, a lot of us are going to try and get into the Ryan Gosling premiere of Lost River, so hopefully it'll be good. Basically everyone at Cannes is going to try and get into this film, it's not in the competition so all you need is a badge and to wait in line. We are going to get there three hours early and wait, that's how bad we want to go.