Cannes Film Festival Day One

The first day at the Cannes Film Festival was absolute chaos, in the best way. I left the apartment in Juan-les-Pins at 8:45 to catch the 9:00 train to Cannes. Upon arrival, the entire Croissette was full of reporters and tourists. We got a spot outside of the Palais to beg for tickets for the opening premiere, The Dead Don't Die. After begging for a bit, I went into the Palais to go into the Marché, which was great to see the market and how different markets and movies were being pitched. After, I went to the talk with Eric Kohn from Indiewire, which was very helpful for this course and the overall approach to figuring out the festival for the week.

After the Kohn talk, I got a quick lunch before returning to the Palais to beg for tickets. As there was not much going on today compared to the rest of the festival, I had decided to give it my all begging for tickets to the opening premiere. After a while, I felt a tap on my shoulder and found a woman looking for directions to the Majestic. Her French was very bad, my French was even worse, and we had a very frustrating thirty-second exchange before I realized that she actually was German. After that, I was able to give her directions in German rather than French. Afterward, she looked at my sign  ("Un billet pour The Dead Don't Die SVP") and asked "tonight?" Thinking she meant to ask if the premiere was tonight, I quickly said yes. She then reached in her pocket and merely said "one," while handing me a ticket to the later showing.

The rest of the day was a whirlwind of getting ready and going to the screening. We were able to get red carpet photos because we were at the second showing, and Bill Murray waved back at me when I awkwardly waved at him. I enjoyed the humor of the film, but absolutely detest zombies, so that made my enjoyment of the film a bit difficult. I got back to the apartment around 2:00 AM, and have had the most wonderful first day here.

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