First off – kudos to the French for their amazing hangover-free wine. Nobody should wake up this refreshed after so much Bordeaux and so little sleep. Truly impressive. Sunday we had back-to-back meetings, parties and reunions, so we missed what I heard were awesome films at Cannes Indie, alas. However, I wouldn’t have changed a second of this perfect day.
After contending with some long overdue e-mails and pre-production for Dolores plus some Market business at the Palais, Agustin and I attended a party at the South African Pavilion for the film Mad Cow whose ad campaign had us mighty impressed. The International Village lines the beach with its endless tents devoted to different countries. At this one we enjoyed free wine and met the movie’s super-cool producer Doug Marschke, a fellow San Franciscan who happened to find it best to fund and shoot his film in South Africa. The experience had us all the more pumped for the screening on Wednesday.
We then met up with J, Nat and Ra and walked along the beach where we saw some interesting street performers, including the funny cat guy. Honestly, how does one come up with the idea to dress in Napoleonic French aristocracy attire, powder his face white and bite the necks of kittens to simulate them to kiss each 
other as he wears them around his neck? That’s impressive. And apparently profitable.
We were thrilled to arrive at an open air bar that offered margaritas and Nat and I got to enjoy our long overdue symbolic margaritas, enhanced by Ra’s participation who partook of 2 on an empty stomach no less – my kind of gal! Interestingly, the French apparently garnish theirs with large colorful marshmallows which amused us to no end.
Properly giddified, we headed back over to the International Village to our next party where much to my delight we met up with my fest friend Barbie Wilde and delightful beau Georg Kajanus. We enjoyed a fun reunion at this party put on by the French Film Commission and the American Producers Guild. While there was some networking to be done, the highlight of the fete was the free wine and shrimp with guacamole (at which time we all discovered our mutual love of free food.)
Nonetheless, we found the caterers were a bit stingy and Agustin noticed a party at the tent across the way that looked a bit more happening (and they had champagne!) So, we decided to see if we could crash and hence began a new fave pasttime. FYI, it is VERY easy to crash parties in Cannes. We just walked in and attempted to look bored and unimpressed (which then elicited a slew of bored and unimpressed photo ops at every event thereafter.)
Getting lightheaded, we decided it was time for some solid food and all agreed it was time to try Astoux et BRUN, which we’d been told was THE place to consume shellfish. And boy was it ever! 
This was probably our best meal of the entire trip and we had a super fun waiter who taught us to how to use tiny picks to extract and eat the tiny sea snails from their shells that came out with the bread before the appetizers – divine! After, came endless oysters, scallops, langostinos and other delicacies of the sea. It was a gorgeous sight. Equally gorgeous was the sight of these dear friends gathered around the table indulging in all manner of shellfish discussing film, life and the pursuit of dreams. I wished it would never end. But of course it had to.
J, Nat and Ra had to catch a bus to their villa, but Georg, Barbie, Agustin and I decided we weren’t quite ready to call it a night. 
We decided to check out the famed Carlton and Majestic Hotel bars where all the bigshots stay and play. En route, we stopped to admire the most gorgeous fireworks display above the beach and I remember laughing, thinking how wonderfully cliché it was to see a visual that so perfectly captured exactly that which I was feeling. I don’t smoke, but if I did I would have lit one up right then and there. A truly orgasmic evening!
The Carlton was rather sedate and understated, but I was delighted to run into fest friend and impressively prolific horror/crime thriller film director/producer Tammi Sutton whom I met at Shriekfest last year. She’d just wrapped on her latest feature Isle of Dogs which she shot in London. Keep an eye out for her, this woman is impressive and I so look forward to picking her brain if I can ever catch her in between projects. In many ways she’s what I want to be “when I grow up” and she has the most amazing art studio back in L.A. suggesting we’ve only begun to sample her many talents.
We then ventured over to the Majestic where we ordered an amazing bottle of white, which we enjoyed at what would become “our table.” Our poor waiter was the opposite of pretentious and became terribly flustered as he found himself unable to open the bottle and actually had to take it away to accomplish the task. 
I felt bad for him, but enjoyed the sheer humanness of it in such an otherwise swanky, pristine atmosphere. It really is an elegant hotel and I felt glamorous sitting there surrounded by the bold, the beautiful and the ostentatious.
However, I became so engrossed in our wonderful conversation I missed yet another celebrity sighting. I noticed the other members of my party grew suddenly silent with odd looks on their faces. Agustin asked, “That was a Weinstein, wasn’t it?” Georg and Barbie nodded, “Harvey.”
Satisfied enough was said on the subject we returned to our own affairs. Georg and Barbie came to promote their new project Sailor the Musical which looks and sounds amazing. Barbie’s also working on some fun projects of her own, so keep your eyes out for her latest short stories. Her first, Sister Cilice, is featured in Clive Barker’s Hellbound Heart compilation and is like a gloriously mad, twisted, yet beautiful mix of Cenobite culture, Georges Bataille-esque Catholic cynicism and stunningly cruel Argento-esque imagery. Only somebody as simultaneously witty, ballsy and sensitive as Barbie could pull this off so beautifully. Just as we were winding down, Daniel Fanaberia a charming young actor from the film Behind Your Eyes, plopped down in the empty seat by our table and engaged in discussion. This happened a lot in Cannes and was really quite refreshing. Life without uptight social formalities is ever so pleasant – perhaps another perk of the wonderful wine?
Agustin and I practically floated home in the wee hours, enjoying the perfect coastal air on the beautiful walk back up the hill to the villa where some villa mates and fest attendees still hung out on the veranda with wine and discussion which we gleefully joined before finally giving in to utter exhaustion. A perfect Cannes day, a perfect Cannes night – I was beginning to realize they were not so rare a breed. Before I conked out I had a mini panic attack suddenly realizing, “Damn, we’re actually going to have to leave this amazing place.” I dreamt that night that we decided to stay on as squatters and am still not entirely convinced it’s such a bad idea.