WHAT TO SAY TO A WOMAN?

Cannes - There is a book called in jargon The Bible, with all the companies attending the Festival, with all the delegates, their contacts and their pictures.
It is very useful and because I have some time to kill before my next meeting I flip it through trying to memorize the faces and the names of the companies I am interested in.

After a while I go to the RAI office to talk about a project, I see the responsible and I instinctively call her by name, like we knew each other.
Pleasantly surprised, she comes to great me and I say I saw her picture in The Bible a few hours before.
- Oh, that picture... I'm uglier in that picture. Or am I uglier in real life?
You're uglier in the picture. You're uglier in real life.
- I avail myself of the right to remain silent, because anything I would say would be used against me.

But how can a man reply to this question?

PROFESSIONAL LIARS

Cannes - How can you show to someone you just met how important you are in the film industry?
One of the best ways is to demonstrate you know the right people.

An American Producer friend of mine tells me he's interested in doing the remake of a successful Italian film of a couple of years ago, and asks me to find out who owns the rights.
I search for information, and the very next day I succeed in setting up a meeting with the Producer of that film.

Little before the meeting I update my American friend:
- The rights have been just sold to an Italian American Producer who lives in California: Bla Bla Bla.
- Never heard about her.
- But they produced other successful films in Italy and he's looking forward to sell the rights for the remake. He'd like to talk about them to you.
- Bring him here.

So I meet the Italian Producer and walk him to the American one.
While we're all together the Italian says:
- The rights for that film have just been sold to the Producer - pause for more enphasis - Bla Bla. You know her?
- Of corse, how could I not? Is she still married?

The Italian is suddenly imbarrassed and says:
- I actually don't know her that well...

When I attend meetings between big time Producers I'm always fascinated by their talent in shooting high to impress...

UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTERS AND DIFFICULT DECISIONS IN CANNES

Let's dispell a myth, not all the places where you eat in Cannes are overwhelmingly expensive: you just have to avoid the Croisette.
What really destroys you is the culture of easy money.

Evening. I am waiting to see a friend and I stop by in a creperie, sitting at a table outside.
After a while I finished and don't get away, the Waitress comes with the bill: 5 euros.
I put a 20 on the little plate, she thanks me and goes away.
After a few minutes I start thinking she is taking too much time to bring me the change, and when I take a glance in the shop I see her with her arms crossed, killing the time.

In the meanwhile, at the tables of the next restaurant a sudden buzz of excitement raises and Robert De Niro (this year's Festival President), stands. He starts shaking hands, taking pictures and talking to the people around.

So: leaving the table and reach Robert De Niro before he goes away or get into the creperie and tell the Waitress those 15 euros more weren't my appreciation for their crepe?

I start taking notes for this post, waiting for Robert De Niro to decide for me.

P.S.: The arrow in the picture on the right shows where Robert De Niro was before I thought to take at least a picture.

I'M NOT BAD, I'M JUST DRAWN THAT WAY

I lately met a Hollywood Producer whose neighbor is Keanu Reeves, and he told me he's one of the nicest persons he knows: hard to say he's actually one of the biggest Holywood stars.

So I told him an impression I had: I said that I met a number of film people now, and they have all been nice to me.

This world is not as dirty as it's said. I think this is because they all know how difficult is to make films, and are in general open minded and willing to exchange ideas, or tell their story, or looking for future collaborations.

And most of all, they all know there's not all that money people usually think: it's true we talk about projects worth millions, but when you start taking off the salaries for the Actors and the technicians, all the expenses, the cut for distributors and advertising and the money you have to give back to your investors, what it usually remains is very little.

He agreed with me and confirmed my opinion: the real nasty people in this business are the ones who don't really belong to it: Agents, Lawyers, and most of all Investors.
Most of the investors think they will put in your film project 100 and will take a million, and because they finance a (small) part of your project they own it. They ask to change the script, to cast some of their friends or fiancé or want to use your film to wash the money they earned illegally.

You have to face difficult situations: from a side, you want to make a film that costs an enormous amount of money and can't do alone. From the other side, accepting their offer could mean destroying your film project and yourself.

So you spend most of your time looking for money, and when you find someone interested, in most of the cases you have to turn his offer down.

This made me think of Jessica Rabbit as a metaphore of the movie business, and her famous sentence as the catching phrase movie people should use to present themselves to the World:

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way".

KENTON & MILES AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

I would like to thank Kenton & Miles International, and in a special way its President Mr Salvatore Biscozzi, for having reported on their News of May my activities in Cannes during the last Film Festival.

THE BIG SECRET OF THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

People usually ask me if I met some actors in Cannes during the Festival. Yes I did, but that’s not the most juicy part of the tale.
The really interesting thing that no journalist tells is that it’s all fake: all this inaccessibility is actually just a way the Cannes Council uses to let people talk about this event on which they spend a lot of money.

If people knew Actors are around, make shopping and go to restaurants it would all become something usual, like in London and Los Angeles.

Cannes is a nice little town that lives on tourism and for 10 days a year earns the attention of the World: they can’t afford an actor to walk alone the 200 meters that separate the Hotel Martinez from the Palais.

So at a certain time of the afternoon the main street is closed and the police start bottle up the pedestrians.
All of a sudden you can’t walk freely anymore: you’re stopped to let pass cars of the Festival that care VIPs.
Policemen force passers by to press themselves against the barriers of the Hotel Martinez (from where the cars of the Festival pull off), and this increases the mess.
Then start to come passers by who are attracted by all this concentration of people.

Confusion becomes frenzy to see and take pictures of someone known passing in the cars.
From a balcony of the hotel a young lady waves her arm to the people like a goddess, and all of us take pictures of her enthusiastically, even thought she’s too far to understand who she is.

The black cars of the Festival come and go from the hotel, all now, but who’s inside them? Hard to say, because the wind shields are darkened.
Isn’t it strange? This event is based on the opportunity for normal people to see some actors just a few meters from them: darkening the screens doesn’t make any sense.

Unless…

I bend a little, in an uncomfortable position and the Sun on my face. From there, I can see the inside of the cars that slowly pass by in front of me, and…
they’re empty.

All this people are jubilant and fight to take pictures of empty cars.
So there aren’t any actors at all? No, they’re in the not obscured screen cars.

It’s the idea of the inaccessibility of these people that makes them fascinating: the guy who until a few minutes ago was just getting an ice cream in the main street now is surrounded by bodyguards to protect him.
But is the Festival itself that made up this need for security.

It’s all fake: last year I was cueing for the screening of a film, and behind me there was the Actress of Notte Prima degli Esami Oggi. I didn’t remember what her name was, so I didn’t say anything.

I get into the cinema, I sit down and I have a mega screen where they show in real time what happens outside, and here is the Actress who a few minutes ago was cueing with me, now on the red carpet, to let the photographers take pictures of her, and all of a sudden inaccessible.

And here’s another news: what happens when an Artist hasn’t time to go to the Hotel Martinez and for any reason is already at the Palais, without doing his crowd bath?

Then there’s a secondary entrance that leads them in a reserved area, where one of the official cars takes them, does roughly 150 meters to circle the Palais and leaves them in front of the photographers and the crowd.

THE DAY I INSULTED JAMES GRAY

I’m in Cannes, the day is almost finished and I get into the Palais Stéphanie. I hear people saying they’re waiting for Francis Ford Coppola on the terrace for a conference.

So I take the lift, which is impressively large and quiet full of people.
A plunging neckline on the opposite side of the entrance drags my attention.Nobody talks.

All of a sudden I realize they must have seen my glance, maybe too insistent, because they all watch down and try to hide their laughs.
I look somewhere else and I find out that in front of me, a kiss distance, there’s a tall and slim guy without the badge, who looks like a geek and seems familiar to me.
A year ago I was at the première of his film, where the guests of honor were him (the Director) and Gwyneth Paltrow.

So I exclaim:
- Hey, I think I know you!

All start laughing, because they think I was fixing him and were waiting for my reaction.
- Your film, last year. Good.
- Thanks for not saying it was even bad.

And we get out.

P.S.: The neckline in the lift was of his wife.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

(Cannes, 20th May 2009) Sometimes it is hard to be a man and keep the emotions, especially thinking about all the efforts, and that that hell could be ended forever.These are me and Charles Fries: my American Distributor and Executive Producer, with whom today I signed a deal for a worldwide distribution.

From now on I have all the guarantees I need to give to my investors, I can take their money and make my film.

Shaking his hand, today he told me:

“The end of the beginning”.