In the end, my filmmaking partner P_ and I each made one phone call to producer’s we knew had traveled to Cannes.

The feedback from my former producer H_, a past attendee and award-winning short-film producer at Cannes, was that I definitely should go, although she was concerned that it was already too late, seeing as Cannes had started the day before.

I remember her specific advice was to wear comfortable shoes, as there was much walking to be done, and to hang around not at the Hotel Majestic, where people and film business conspicuously hung-out, but at the little hotel just behind it.  It was to smaller, more discrete retreats that true film biz heavyweights would congregate for an after-work tipple.

H_ also sighed that meetings took weeks in advance to set up, so there was little likelihood of getting a meeting at this late stage.  Nevertheless, H_ felt it was mandatory to attend Cannes, if only as a learning experience.  She said “In the first year you attend Cannes, you won’t do any deals, but you will learn a lot.  You have to have a first year sometime, so it may as well be now.”

That was enough for me.  All along P_ had stood beside me as I made the call.  After I filled him in on H_’s advice, it was his turn to call his contact.

Judging from P_’s responses as he spoke on the phone, it sounded like P_ had a very different relationship with his producer contact.  P_ was evidently in a much more junior position in the view of the person on the other end of the phone, and the advice sounded part sermon, part lecture, part scold.

Practical Tip:  For those who are new to “the Biz”, it is common to get this kind of condescending attitude.  You will note I never assumed P_ was an incapable producer – just an inexperienced one.  I was confident with my guidance, and our mutual eagerness to learn, that we could do a sufficient amount of the producing to get the film financed.  In retrospect I am sure I made the right decision.

Again, the contact advised P_ it was too late to attend Cannes seeing as it had already started.  Again, the contact affirmed that Cannes was a very important destination for filmmakers, however, the contact implied P_ was too junior to be attending such a lofty event as the Cannes Film Festival.

On the subject of meetings, yet again, the advice was that it was too late to book meetings.  That should have been done months ago.

On the basis of these two phone calls, and Sh_’s advice the night before, P_ and I decided to proceed with booking tickets to Cannes straight away.

To be continued… 

I had made the decision to go to the Cannes Film Festival then and there, in Sh_’s living room.

The only hurdle now was to convince my filmmaking partner P_ that he should be going too.  This was not going to be easy.

I had already noticed P_’s penny-pinching ways.  Even in our first meeting he had not purchased himself a coffee, asking instead for tap water at the café where we met.  I had wondered then what would happen if I didn’t buy anything either.  My guess was that he would still refuse to buy anything at the café, despite using their chair, tables and waitstaff’s time.

In the ensuing weeks I would test this theory to come to a singular conclusion.  P_ would indeed refuse to buy anything, leaving the onus upon me to pay for something so we didn’t get moved along by an angry proprietor.

Another P_ ‘party trick’ was to load up on his favourite “goon wine” (the cheapest cask wine he could find) and get drunk on the cask wine before going out.  A true “Cadbury” man, it didn’t take much to get P_ drunk.  A glass and a half of alcohol was sufficient to change his behaviour completely.  Whilst P_ would normally keep his high opinion of himself in check, after a whiff of alcohol, his lofty self-sentiments came thick and fast.  Self-serving comments and then insults would soon follow.  The annoying thing with P_ was that if you made a rejoinder, his uncanny memory and shameless ersatz behaviour would mean the rejoinder would be used against you the next time, or he would copy your wisecrack word-for-word and claim it as his own.

Sh_, whom P_ had submitted parts of our script complained P_ had stolen his lines that Sh_ himself had used in his pick-up forays.

I knew I had my work cut out for me trying to convince P_ of parting with $3000 for what may well have been a fruitless trip.

Fortunately, for all Sh_’s snarky comments, he was at least consistent with his own argument that we should be in Cannes.  Although Sh_ did not volunteer any arguments that would encourage P_ to make the trip to Cannes, I was easily able to force agreement from Sh_.

Y: P_, what’s $3000 compared to getting our film financed.  If we want our film financed we have to go to an international market like Cannes.  Isn’t that right Sh_?

Sh_ (reluctantly):  Oh….. Yes.

I could see Sh_ was bewildered by my audacity.  In his mind he was asking himself the question: “Is Y_ really going to fly out to Cannes after it’s already started?”

After nearly four hours of continuous, but never angry debate, P_ finally agreed that he needed to go too.

There was one check I myself had to make before I felt 100% confident myself.  I needed to make a phone call to an upcoming producer, H_, who had a year earlier approached me to make a screenplay I had shown her into a feature film.

She had already some success at Cannes, but only at the short film level.  A film she produced had been submitted into the Uncertain Regard section of the short film competition – still a major accomplishment considering the hundreds of entries they receive.

What was unusual about this request was that it came some six months after I had initially approached her with the script.  Belatedly she called me telling me I had a “unique voice”.  I was skeptical of her change of heart, noting it had come just two weeks before a deadline for original screenplays from emerging filmmakers.

I hesitated before making the call.  Although we had not had crossed words, I was disappointed by her earlier vacillation on my script.

Still, it was no time to let the past concern me.  I had to make an important decision on whether to spend $3000 on plane tickets and expenses flying to a place I had never been before.  I also had the added responsibility of my partner’s $3000 investment, as well as our combined time.

In the end, the decision was easy.  It was only one phone call.

To be continued…