Cannes Film Festival is not only a celebration of cinemas of the world. Nor Cannes Film Festival is a colourful congregation of the who’s who of the entertainment cosmos. Cannes Film Festival is a lifetime enthralling experience in itself. As the 17^thCentury English clergyman Thomas Fuller observed “Seeing is believing, but feeling is truth.”

Being there. Participating in the Cannes Film Festival, up, close, and personal, and thriving in the maddening chaos of the coliseum that collectively brings cinemas, celebrities and cinephiles, all driven they their singular passion for consuming and toasting creative cinematic creations and striking new relationships, is like a God send opportunity.

Cannes Film Festival, unfortunately, is virtually a costly and very dear affair. It is not for those with a modest budget in mind. Here money matters. Loosening your purse strings the best prescription to be among the galaxy of giants in entertainment business, drawn from across all streams, seeking to connect and strike possible deals. Yes, “money, money, money, it’s a rich man’s world,” is the credo on which Cannes Film Festival circumambulates as goes the eponymous song by the Swedish pop group ABBA.

At Cannes Film Festival, money provides one, the passage of rite, the power and muscle for privileges and perks that come with it. It also ensures that extra zip and spring in one’s steps to walk the red carpet, rub shoulders with the high and mighty of the film business.

Savour the thrill of watching celebrity stars sashaying over the resplendent red carpet, preening and pouting in their hauteurcouture bestscaling the 24 steps of the Palais du Festival – the epicentre of all activity.

Showmanship is the login to click on Cannes Film Festival and proximity to the moves and shakers the password to a fortnight of flamboyance and fantastical calendar cinema jamboree hosted at the Temple of Film Festivals – Cannes, the tiny resort town on the French Riviera, famed for its Festival International du Film de Cannes.

The blustery and bustling town’s Boulevard de la Croisette, curving along the coast, lined with sandy beaches, upmarket boutiques and palatial hotels, being the home to the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, and Allée des Étoiles – Cannes’ walk of fame.

The 2.5 km long boulevard, globally renowned thanks to Cannes Film Festival, lined with luxury hotels, shops and other attractions on the city side, while the coastal side offers areas to enjoy a stroll and soak up the sights and sounds of the Mediterranean.

The historic le Palais des Festivals et des Congrès de Cannes, the great white, glass building on la Croisette, with its breathtaking sea views has been the go-to venue for much feted and most coveted Cannes Film Festival.

The 77^th Cannes Film Festival provided me the opportunity to catch up with the hype and hoopla that surrounds it, and be amongst the thick of things, for the 12-dayrun of the festival.

There is much much more to Cannes Film Festival than catching up with the marvels and magic of movies that are curated for showcase at the Centropolis, which also houses the Marche du Film or the Film Market, one of the largest and most important film markets in the world.

A key market place, the Marché du Film, which represents the largest international gathering of professionals in the film industry, wherein people swapped business cards and projects took off, and sees over 14,000 film industry professionals head to Cannes each year to present and discover almost 4,000 films and projects in development at 33 screening venues.

The Riviera and Lérins exhibition halls forming a hub around the world-famous Palais des Festivals and the Village International becoming the top hotspot for promoting films from all over the world.

Teeming with mass of onlooker masses, curious film stars gazers, selfie driven diehards, the tailing paparazzies, the gun totting French police – The Gendarmerie in their blue and black uniforms.

Being a cinephile, and more so, a cinema curator, attending the Cannes Film Festival was like ticking one of the premier and prestigious gala gathering of the cinema world and experience first hand how the festival is conducted and way the volunteers and interns are vested with the power to manage and monitor the humungous mass of eager beaver movie buffs who jostle to make it to the film of their choice.

Besides them, of course, you have the elite film press drawn from almost entire world, and the colourful and glossy film magazines that vie for your attention even as the young, attractive and enterprising volunteers try to hand a copy of the magazine in your hands even as one snakes his/her way in the serpentine queue – with tickets booked online and last minute – patiently waiting with their Festival Badge and QR code tickets to be scanned and sprint their way to the vantage viewing points of the theatres screening the films.

The Grand Theatre Lumiere, is the pivot of film screenings, followed by The Debussy Theatre, The Agnes Varda Theatre, The Bunuel Theatre, The Bazin Theatre, the Cineum Cannes Cinema, The Arcades Theatre, The Cinema de la Plage, where you have open-air screenings each evening from 9:30 pm.

The Marché du Film screening rooms are located in the Palais des Festivals,and comprises of in the Palais – Theatres B to H – at Level 3 and Theatres I – J – K –at Level 4. Lérins Theatres (1 to 4) at Level 1, and in the city proper, Les Arcades Theatre, theatres 1 to 3 and Olympia Theatre, theatres 1 to 9.

Both the press and the market badge holders have exclusive screenings held for them wherein other badge holders do not have the access to these screenings. Likewise, the Press/Media Centre is off limit for the participants likewise, the Market too other than the badge holders.

If the free Palm Bus shuttle series that ferries festival participants from one screening venue to another, is a major plus, not knowing French language is a biggest bugbear for you do not elicit any answers to your posers right from the festival coordinators, usherers, interns, what have you. Your English is no good in this land of cinema festivity if you do not parles François.

But cinema and innate love for the Seventh Art being the melding factor that collects cinephiles from around the world to celebrate some of the creative auteur works of famous and aspiring film makers, turning Cannes into a melting pot of multifarious movies to regale and relish in their nifty narratives, lack of French should not matter.

Yes, au revisor, monsieur and mademoiselle, come May, Cannes is the place to be, as cinemas come alive bringing cineastes under its ubiquitous umbrella to fete and feast upon fascinating films that mesmerise you in its thrall of excited anticipating. Vive la Cinema.

by

S Viswanath is veteran Film Journalist / Critic & involved in various key capacities at many International Film Festivals circuits across the Globe also co-author of book ‘Random reflections: kaleidoscopic musings on Kannada cinema.