The Jewels + Gist of the 68th Cannes Film Festival
Perspective, Bravery, the glittering Riviera, and sharing the common ground film + fashion gives us
Things I remember about 2015:
My youngest turned One.
I visited my Grandma in Toronto and we took my first trip to the Muskokas, a place she took my dad and his siblings as part of their formative youth.
The film YOUTH premiered, starring powerhouses Michael Caine, Rachel Weisz, Harvey Keitel, Jane Fonda, and Paul Dano. Then I saw them, live and in person, in our lobby doing a pre-show press junket. Yeah, I took a photo, and yes it’s super blurry (that’s what happens when you haven’t had your morning coffee yet and are trying to be stealth). My memory of it: Crystal clear and filled with awe and hope simmering just below the surface. The general feeling permeated that whole week in the south of France 10 years ago.
A short film I co-wrote was part of the famed Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner. It debuted in a dark little screening room in the basement of the Grand Palais — and we loved every minute. Crammed into a small hotel room just off the Croisette, my best friend, who starred in the film, and her boyfriend and I exploded our suitcases into the European-sized closet and spent the days playing dress-up, attending conferences, perusing the Marché du Film, and attended whatever screenings weren’t in the basement that we could get our hands on.
It was pure magic.
One of my favourite photos from the trip — aside from the one my friend’s boyfriend took of Jake Gyllenhaal entering the back of the Palais for his duties on the jury that year from THISFARAWAY. In fact, Jake (we’re on a first name basis like that) probably saw me stuffing my face full of churro from behind those dark glasses in that exact moment, we were so close. But back to the selfie I took one morning while waiting for the others. I’m in a vintage silk dress my grandma made by hand, in a borrowed Dyrberg/Kern necklace that my friend’s grandmother had bought her, my Tiffany & Co. starfish bracelet gifted on my 30th birthday by my husband, and a Pandora Me bracelet featuring my two kidlets’ birth signs. Brigette is pouting at me in the background, and I love every inch of this picture. Of those jewellery pieces I still wear, and when I do, remember this moment.
A dream, really.
So much has happened since — and yet it’s only been a blink.
You see, I’m still in the basement, in a way. A part of, and yet apart from the Film Scene. SICARIO, directed by Canadian Denis Villeneuve, was in competition for the Palme d’Or in 2015. There they all were: Benicio, Josh, and Emily alongside Denis. Pristine, proud, and so close to where we stood, waiting in line just beyond the barriers for the film right after. My view and own picture of them, slightly out of focus; askew because I was close but not quite there — yet. The official snap just as in-focus as they are.
If that isn’t a metaphor for my screenwriting career, for life in general sometimes…
The “yet” is the important part of it all. The perspective of this amazing experience adding a hopeful luster to perseverance in the things I want to do most in life. Because, in some ways, I’ve already done them.
And I can do it again.
Like taking part in the pitching workshop with filmmakers from all over the world. Having conversations with strangers in the seats next to me while attending screenings. Was that even me? Bravery hits us when we least expect it. Sometimes, I wish I had more of it, wonder if maybe then I could go even further.
But the beautiful thing is, I was lucky then, and I’m lucky now that I still have the precious gift of time. I still believe in the worth of my dreams; if only to share story and hopefully, just one person is inspired. It’s what I believe the intrinsic purpose of story is.
I have no rose coloured glasses on about it all: The Dream is hard. There were moments during that Cannes experience I wanted to cry and shrink and go home. That pitching workshop? The producer who ran it was terrifying and mortified me in front of a group of strangers. Nothing became of our short film after the trip. I haven’t had a single script produced since. Life’s like that: Messy and complicated and never quite clear until we’ve had some perspective.
Those perceived failures in the wake of the glittering jewel that is Cannes: the worth, dare I say even say the success, was in the being there. Traveling alone to a foreign country. Meeting people from so many different countries in one place, united by film and even fashion. Oh the fashion. My jewellery was my armour that week. Putting on piece by meaningful piece; conversation-starters and also distractors from the parts of me that were oh-so-scared.
Film + Fashion. A common ground. One I’m always happy to stand on, talk about, share. “Fluff” to some, artful expressions and reflections of ourselves to others.
As I quietly wish myself a happy 10th anniversary of this (still) unbelievable experience and reflect on how far I’ve come, and what I still want to accomplish, I want to know, what will you do with the next wild and precious ten years?
This was such a great read. I love your openness about the full spectrum of emotions around something, bc you are right, life is messy and complicated, but we are lucky to have some artful expression in it.
10 years is a funny chunk of time. When I look backward at it, I feel like I've lived so many different lives. It's hard to imagine what the next 10 will bring! And yet, time has proven I can count on myself to keep seizing random opportunities to see where they lead. I'll certainly be writing more books and fan girling food. Do you have things in your next 10 years you want?