Cannes Diaries – Pre-Cannes
“Being a cinephile means paying two months’ worth of minimum wage for accommodation in euros and rejoicing over free movie tickets.”
Greetings from the French Riviera!
The Cannes Diaries series, a journal written to share my experiences and feelings as a cinema enthusiast attending the Cannes Film Festival, will expand to include film analyses and detailed information about Cannes as the festival progresses.
Day-4
Tickets for Cannes open for reservation four days before the film screening. Reservations are opened for specific categories based on badge level – or not opened at all. We will delve into the categories later; for now, let’s remember that the Cannes Film Festival is an event aimed exclusively at film industry professionals. For example, premieres and competition films at the Grand Theater Lumiere are reserved only for industry professionals, and entry with a non-industry badge like cinephile is only possible by “begging for an invitation” (we will discuss this more later). We haven’t lost hope yet 😊
The first day includes only the opening ceremony and Quentin Dupieux’s film “Le Deuxième Acte” (The Second Act). As for Cannes Classics, I have no intention of watching Abel Gance’s nearly four-hour-long propaganda film “Napoléon Vu Par Abel Gance.” The good news of the day is “Trainspotting” in its 4K restored version at Cinema d’Plage! Whether I can attend the opening ceremony or not, I am eagerly looking forward to being on the beach…
Tickets are sold out within minutes after reservations open at 9:00 AM. Since I can’t get tickets for the opening ceremony, I am focusing on the other days.
Day-3:
I am experiencing the disappointment of not being able to get tickets for any screenings on the second day of the festival. In the evening, I am revising my strategy and working on the program for the upcoming days.
Speaking of which, working on the program at Cannes is on a whole different level. I have attended numerous festivals, big and small, for 21 years. Except for Berlinale 2023, I have managed to secure tickets for every screening I planned to attend at other festivals (Berlinale also has a similar ticketing system to Cannes, where you engage in a battle every morning at 10:00 AM for tickets available two days later). Of course, you know that things at Cannes won’t be as easy as at any other festival, but instead of planning your schedule first and then getting tickets, you prepare your schedule based on the tickets you can get. So, I ended up preparing five different variations of my program for each day and shaping it according to the tickets I could secure, and I’m quite pleased with this😊
And the tickets are free – for the first time as a cinephile, I am experiencing the pride of entering films without paying, with an earned badge. (Of course, everything seems free (!) – never mind that I’m paying two minimum wages (Netherlands) for accommodation and rejoicing over free movie tickets… This must be one of the sub-definitions of a cinephile).
The surroundings are beautiful—cafes, restaurants, producers with badges, directors, cinephiles, the press, and so on; the entire industry is here… The energy of the place is incredible. At the Palais, there is a special event by the main sponsor, Mastercard, which is, of course, only open to invited guests. After grabbing something to eat, I return to the festival area and notice the lined-up stairs.
When I asked what was happening, Raul responded, explaining that unofficial photographers had stationed themselves here and were finalizing preparations for the red carpet. After a pleasant chat, I returned to the hotel, exhausted from the day, and went to bed.
Day -1:
After winning the ticket battle at 09:00, I picked up my badge from the Croisette.
I watched the red carpet being laid out and then took a long walk along the beaches of Cannes.
I then headed to Cannes’ Film Market, Marche du Film. Inside, there was intense activity with only one day left. After a brief tour of the stands of production companies I had only seen on the big screen, I left the market.
Later, I started celebrity spotting in front of the Martinez Hotel – at least the Jury was expected to arrive today. Besides Peter Bradshaw, the Head Film Critic of The Guardian, there were a few celebrities I didn’t recognize. Oh, and I think I saw Ebru Ceylan; I couldn’t tell for sure because of her sunglasses, but she was speaking Turkish.
Yours!
Nil Birinci