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Festival de Cannes - when the Rivièra becomes Tinseltown

Behind the glitter and the scantily-clad starlets, Cannes means business

Cannes 2011Robert de Niro chairs an international jury of the cinema’s great and the good, which will choose the winner among 19 films selected for competition. The overall winner will leave with the prestigious Palme d’Or, likely to add many millions a film’s box office take.

Stars, film professionals, journalists and tourists will rub shoulders on the Croisette from 11 to 21 May.

Sandwiched between the Mediterranean and the Alps, this surprisingly compact town expects over 25,000 cinéastes, around 4,500 journalists and a stunning 130,000 tourists. Behind the razzamatazz and the tearful acceptance speeches, lies the cash machine.

In anticipation of visiting luvvies, the Carlton hotel has ordered 5,000 bottles of champagne and a mere 15 kilos of caviar. Aspiring movie moguls can stay in the Suite Royale at the Majestic for only 38,000 euros per night. A rented 80 metre yacht will set you back 20,000 euros per day.

For those who can’t run to 50,000 euros for a week in a villa overlooking the Croisette, there’s always Pure France.

Above all Cannes means business. Film business. The festival is merely the tip of this iceberg. It’s here that films come chasing distributors, where budding directors hunt for producers and producers look for finance. Hotel back rooms, restaurants, yacht saloons become makeshift cinemas. What really matters here happens outside the competition.

Surprisingly perhaps, anyone can enter a film for competition. These days all it takes is a DVD in the post and an online payment by credit card.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away, two film students presented their graduation opus, Last Shift for Me Father. The galaxy was Derby. The year was 1973. One of the students became this humble scribe. A year later the film found its way to Cannes out of competition.

Please send any requests for autographs care of the Pure France office. Those accompanied by a 10 euro note will be fast tracked.


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