Cannes Diary – Avatars

It occurred to me while watching a well known blogger droop forward in sleep here in the wifi cafe that we are all operating as avatars in one way or another. Our online personas are so small, no comparison to in the flesh.

InContention‘s Guy Lodge and ICSFilm.org‘s Erik Dean

Either way, we are all dropping off into sleep at any given opportunity. This has nothing to do with our level of obligation, the greatness or failure of a film — it is just our bodies saying enough is enough, time to sleep. When nature calls…

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Erik from ICSFilms.org. I’ve known him and appreciated his writing for many years but had never met him in person. We had too good of a time, all of us, and before long it was nearly 2am. This is not a good thing for an already sleep-deprived group. We decided to pull the plug and stumble home.

Earlier in the day, I’d had the occasion to go the American Pavilion for a chat on Women in Film, moderated by Anne Thompson and sponsored by Indiewire and Movieline. Women filmmakers from all over the fest stuffed themselves in to hear the conversation, and a group of women also joined via satellite remote.

Among the participants were: The Myth of the American Sleepover producer Adele Romanski, CAA’s Dina Kuperstock (who had previously been an American Pavilion intern), Ariana Bocca (IFC Films), producer Andrea Sperling, entertainment lawyer Linda Lichter and independent producer Lynette Howell.

Among the topics discussed were whether men have it easier in the biz than women. A no-brainer question but what was interesting was that they all said women directors were the worst impacted of all of the careers women could have in Hollywood, and the general feeling about that was that women don’t come at their directing careers as business people, the way they do if they are producers or agents.

“We made it change because it had to change,” said Lichter, who felt she was part of a movement of women way back when who infiltrated the top-down power positions. But, yeah, all agreed that men still make more money, and that films are aimed at men and boys. Most of the projects that get made have to be male-driven for economic reasons.

I tried to sit through Tamara Drewe but it was just horrid, from top to bottom and thus became the only film I’ve walked out of at Cannes, and maybe one of the few ever.

In the afternoon, I was forced down to the American Pavilion to use their wifi.¬† The AmPav is a “scene.” I are the social type who likes to look at and mingle with pretty people on the make (career-wise, not necessarily socially), that is your place. They sell food and drinks too, which makes it and okay place to hang out. Me, I’m more of an Orange wifi cafe type.

Here is the free coffee bar – and the person on my right is my favorite employee here.

And this is the self-serve coffee machine. Drop in pod and press play.

In case you were wondering what it’s like to wake up early and head down to a screening and be sectioned off into the low-rung press line, this is what it looks like:

In the morning it is no big deal. But for afternoon screenings, it kinda sucks balls. You have to wait until all of the blues and pinks and whites get in, even if they are later than the line, before you can be let in to sit in the shitty seats in the balcony. I know, cry me a river, but it gets frustrating to see this play out every day. Why would any one person be “better” enough to get a decent seat?

The streets here at Cannes get crazy at night. The Croisette is jammed and you can’t really make a move. This is how it looked last night heading through the crowd to see Copie Conforme: