There has been a certain je ne sais quoi in the air here in Cannes, and I wasn’t able to quite put my finger on it. It bothered me, someone always good at defining a moment, person or place, that I couldn’t put that feeling into words. Then I attended the press conference for Luca Guadagnino’s ‘The Staggering Girl’ and I had a ‘EUREKA!” moment. So bear with me for a moment while I get to that…
Read MoreLeading up to Cannes, here are the line-ups for Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week
I know, most critics go to the Festival de Cannes looking forward to the Competition titles and maybe will grant themselves the joy of viewing the Un Certain Regard selection. But I’ll admit I’m more of a sidebar person, and while I will view a few great titles in the main lineups, my craves lay more in the Quinzaine (Directors’ Fortnight) and Semaine de la Critique.
Read MoreThe Locarno Diaries: Ted Hope, Bruno Dumont's vision and the luxury of pressing "pause"
A great film festival for me is defined not only by the quality of films I get to watch but also the meetings and chance encounters that happen along the way. In a queue waiting for a film to start, sitting in the lobby of a hotel waiting for an interview and sometimes, just stopping for a whole hour or two in the midst of the hectic festival schedule makes all the sense in the world.
I tried this yesterday afternoon and went to visit a friend in the restaurant of The Belvedere hotel, a good while after lunch and as interview junkets were being conducted all around me. It turned out to be the best decision of the day.
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