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Wednesday 10 May

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When in Cannes

Day Two : Thursday 11 May

Bigger than Ever (Not Counting Hollywood)

As Day 2 of the Cannes Film Festival comes to a close, nearly 200,000 festival attendees have already descended upon this tiny beach town. Numbers for this year have increased faster than NASDAQ -- with the influx notably from the hi-tech sector, which is a strong presence at this year's Cannes Market. More than 5,000 professionals are expected to attend this year's Market, and most of them are competing for just an inch of space in the new Riviera building.

The only number that has not increased is the number of Hollywood films in the Official Selection. This has sparked a strong debate today among both the American and French film communities. Surprisingly, the American studios have found a Gallic ally in Gilles Jacob in their belief that Festival can not do much for American films in terms of increasing profile or revenues as the American public pays little heed to the winners from Cannes. In addition, studios are now leery of submitting a film to the potentially harsh criticism often associated with Cannes audiences.

The Festival also insists that it is representative of a world view of cinema, not just an American one, and that they can do quite well without the high profile films from the larger studios. However, stars drive the profile of the Festival as pointed out by Jacob in today's issue of Le Monde. "In order to get Tarkovski, you need to have Sharon Stone," he noted.

Other numbers tell a much more humanistic story of the impact of the Festival on this small beach front town: 28 million francs allocated for the Festival in the municipal budget; 60 000 green plants added along the Croisette, to give the famous boulevard some added color; 2000 plants installed inside the famed Palais (12 gardeners hired just to tend to these daily between 6 am and 9 am); 26 security agents to make sure that the streets are never too crowded and that people use trash cans, and 1 daily sand-cleaning instead of the usual 3 per week to make sure the Cannes sand stays clean.

Certain Regard Kicks Off

Ten Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her from Rodrigo Garcia kicked off the Certain Regard section. Directed by the son of acclaimed novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the film was hyped thanks to its success at Sundance and its acclaimed cast, which includes Calista Flockhart and Glenn Close. Garcia credits the film's production with Close, nothing that when she signed on, everyone else followed. Across the Croisette, the Official competition screened Bread and Roses, from filmmaker Ken Roach (Bean), the only British filmmaker with a film in official competition. The film was made for only $5.5 million, and filmed mostly in downtown Los Angeles.

The much-hyped 360-degree iVideo imaging process was debuted in Director Amy Talkington's short film The New Arrival. It allowed for interactive participation by letting the audience members choose the angle to view any scene. "The 360-degree concept explodes everything you've ever learned about filmmaking and calls for new rules, new grammar and, most excitingly, a new kind of storytelling," she said. "For those of us who are the first to play with this technology, we will be defining those rules and discovering new boundaries."

After the screenings, festival-goers headed to the parties to blow off steam. One of the most popular destinations was the Man Ray beach, where the party for Ten Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her was held amid free flowing champagne, canapes, cleavage...

Miramax Seizes Vatel

The teams of acquisition executives at the Festival are under their own strain as the first few announced nibbles and deals increase the pressure to buy fast and buy right. The announcement that Miramax bought the opening night film, Vatel, and that both Under Suspicion (Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman) and Girl From Rio (Hugh Lawrie) sold U.K. territories upped the ante for the other players on the acquisition block as everyone is racing to get to the good films first.

Highly anticipated screenings (both creatively and for potential cash value) on Friday include Nurse Betty from Director Neil LaBute, Mission to Mars from Director Brian de Palma, Soft Fruit from Director Christina Andreef and Les Autres Filles from Director Caroline Vignal.

Kathleen McInnis & Kerry Shaw