Cannes: Complete

The most famous film festival in the world? Completed it, mate.

The dust has settled; the sun has set over this year’s Cannes film festival. I’ve been home for more than a week and the festival already feels like a distant memory. Like the film fatigue that was beginning to set in by day three of the festival, anybody still reading these updates has probably heard more than enough about my time in France – so I’m keeping this brief.

One resolution for this extremely-likely-to-be-a-one-off trip was to capture enough footage to make a post-festival film; something that captured the mood of the town whilst the event took place. Without knowing exactly what I would come across or see during my week in Cannes, I took the wide-brush approach of simply videoing as many sun-kissed vistas or unique moments that I could, hopeful that this would give me enough footage to turn into something worth looking back on. 

I pieced the footage together after deciding on the most important thing of all: the music. ‘Collage’ by the Three Degrees, ‘Rock and Roll’ by the Velvet Underground, and ‘Aline’ by Christophe soundtrack the Côte d'Azur scenery; intended to capture the lazy, hazy atmosphere in the Mediterranean heat on the South of France. The final product is embedded above.

The festival’s award ceremony closed the last night of the festival; prizes for acting, writing, directing are handed out, as well as the top prize – the prestigious Palme d’Or. So how many of these films did I manage to catch? The best of the best, this year’s competitions top picks? Well… only one. 

Verdens Verste Menneske’s Renate Reinsve won this year’s award for best female acting performance, but aside from that, I managed to miss all of the award winners. Maybe my taste isn’t very good – it certainly didn’t align with the jury’s selections. Titane, from director Julia Ducournau, won this year’s Palme d’Or, which definitely split opinion. The shock of this outcome was muted, however, as jury president Spike Lee accidentally announced the winner at the beginning of the award ceremony, killing all hype and excitement that was supposed to build before the final announcement of the night.

If I return, maybe I’ll stray further from the films that I think sound good, and focus on the ones with the most festival buzz.

With that, my output for Cannes ends. Eight films, seven PCR tests, six days, five articles, four flights, three appearances from legends of cinema (Steve McQueen, Bill Murray, Spike Lee), two shoes full of sand, and one kebab.

I’ve pulled together Volume II of Sound:as Sounds, this time a collection of songs inspired by the French Riviera. Bonne écoute.