74 MOVIEMAKER.COM
FESTIVAL BEAT
SUMMER 2019HOLLYWOOD,
WACO, MAMMOTH,
AND CANNES
Tales of team MovieMaker’s travels
to historic L.A. movie houses, the Eastern Sierra,
the French Riviera, and the wildflowers of WacoCANNES FILM
FESTIVAL 2019
France’s most prestigious
fest through the eyes
of a first-time attendeeCannes: For most moviemak-
ers it’s the be-all, end-all for their
movies to screen here. Maybe for
that reason the pressure began
mounting from the moment
I found out that I was one of
15 directors chosen to be part
of the Cinéfondation’s L’atelier
program. Cinéfondation
is the festival’s official talent
development arm, which hosts
a residency during the year,
a short film program during the
festival, and then the Latelier—
a week-long one-on-one meeting
program designed to accelerate
co-productions and financing.
I landed in Nice to be whisked
off by an official car through the
French Riviera and was dropped
off to my Cannes Airbnb across
the Mediterranean, with its
glistening blue waters. The day
I landed, the weather was perfect
and this festival was going to be
a working holiday... or so
I thought, until the next day,
when the weather turned frigid.
Going into its 15th year,
Latelier selected 15 directors
from around the world whose
work they find promising and ar-
ranged a fast-track financing andco-production meeting over the
week to help with the successful
completion of the projects. Their
track record is stellar: In the past
14 years, 157 of the 198 projects
presented have been completed
and 27 are in active pre-produc-
tion. (That’s 93 percent!)
Our project, One of a Kind, al-
ready had European co-produc-
ers, so our main objective was
attaching an international sales
agent. Given the prestige of the
program, the crème de la crème
requested meetings with us, so
I can tell you with great cer-
tainty that Cinéfondation takes
good care of its moviemakers.
This year, Cannes’ main
festival center, the Palais des
Festival, was plastered with a gi-
ant official poster of Agnès Varda
peering through a camera atop
a platform during her shoot of
La Pointe Courte. The Palais is a
multi-story expanse of a theater
with perhaps one of the best
exhibitions on one side, featuring
a river of a red carpet and mul-
tiple lines of gowned attendees.
(If you’re watching any of the
screenings at the Palais past 6
p.m., you’re required to wear a
tux and a gown. No exceptions!)
One important thing to re-
member: Getting your photo on
the red carpet at Cannes will be
a fight. Not only can you not take
selfies—you cannot ask anyone
to take your photo on the carpet
either. Ushers and guards will
immediately approach and snubyou if you try. Getting into the
films is also its own art, replete
with a minimum one-hour lining
procedure. (Make sure you’re
standing in the right line to begin
with.) Once inside, watching
a film in the Palais is serious
business. People applaud when
the logo is revealed ahead of the
films and extended standing ova-
tions are common. By the time
my screening of Diego Maradona,
director Asif Kapadia’s docu-
mentary on the great Argentine
football player’s life, ended at
1 a.m., people were still festive
in their heavy gowns!
On the other side of the
Palais is what the festival is
really known for: the world’sbest-attended film market, with
international pavilions celebrat-
ing film culture, tax subsidies,
and opportunities, alongside
the sales and acquisition booths
that dominate the film business
arena. The rear of the interna-
tional pavilions leads out to the
Promenade de la Croisette, so it’s
not uncommon for people to take
meetings on the beach as they
wind down with a glass of wine.
Higher-brow sales agents all
take up private rooms and apart-
ments with gorgeous terraces
overlooking the Croisette across
from the Palais. French sales
agent Wild Bunch, for instance,
took over almost an entire floor
in front of the Palais with a giantMOVIEMAKERS IRAM PARVEEN BILAL (L) AND HEATHER RAE (R) ATTEND
THE BULL COCKTAIL PARTY AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2019BILAL (R) CONTINUES HER FUN IN THE CANNES SUN WITH MOVIEMAKERS
MARÍA RAQUEL BOZZI (C), AND APRIL WRIGHT (L) AT THE FILM INDEPENDENT
AMERICAN PAVILION COCKTAIL PARTY