Experiential Final Paper First Draft: A List of Anecdotes

I was originally going to write this paper about class dynamics at the festival but 1.) Eric Kohn beat me to it 2.) I’ve gone off enough in this class and 3.) I wanted to do something more lighthearted. The following is a list of good and bad, big and small, funny and scary moments from my time on the Cannes Film Festival Study Abroad Program:

-       Eating warm Nutella and banana crepes with Caroline outside the Palais, both of us tucked in the small world of my umbrella against a chilly, gray, drizzly morning

-       The New York producer with the curly red hair and smooth voice who told us about the panel judge who said, “I just want film to impregnate me,” becoming a meme in film circles

-       The redemption arc of me strutting drunkenly to the center of the AmPav dance floor at the queer party, the old industry professionals the ones now on the fringes

-       The cunty British woman who when I asked, “Would you mind if I got a picture?” said “Actually I would mind,”  and refused to move over. She continued to stand in the only spot you could see the stars of The Lighthouse from the balcony and continued to film on her iPhone as I stood there gaping with my DSLR camera (I should’ve said something else and I hope this woman has sleep paralysis)

-       Doing Tarot cards for everyone on the pier as we passed around bottles of wine and cigarettes; the joy of getting to see each person open up in a different way

-       A random guy in front of us in line becoming our unexpected knight in shining armor when he shamed the snooty French woman (you know the one) who cut us for Portrait of a Lady on Fire (not all heroes wear capes)

-       The overwhelming blues and greens and yellows of Juan-les-Pins beach days; discovering the foreboding dark shadows are actually just kinda slimy rocks and that the water isn’t as cold as it first feels

-       Taking pictures as me and Rima Das and friends waited in the rain for Port Authority the blue of her dress and my skirt and Gillian’s umbrella

-       The skirt of my Ralph Lauren maxi dress from America’s Thrift wafting past the face of a homeless woman whose skin was caked in dirt

-       Getting a little too rowdy at the Irish Pub in Cannes, unable to stop doing fake Irish accents and teasing our waiter Jake, at one point an annoyed British father telling us to “Wind down,”

-       Emma casually sampling this pistachio butter from this cool store in Nice which was so delicious that it then led to all of us buying so much of this lady’s butter

-       A store owner in Cannes pulling a knife on me when I snuck in to pee at her store

-       That man who sells candied nuts with the bell saving me and Kristin’s life when we were exhausted and hungry after begging for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood tickets for hours

-       Caroline and I scrambling around the apartment, throwing on dresses, slapping on make-up, and speed-cleaning because we had like 20 minutes to catch the train to go out in Cannes but also had buyers seeing our apartment tomorrow

-       A group of us piled in me and Caroline’s room, giggling through the ridiculousness that is hit teen movie Monte-Carlo starring Selena Gomez

-       The excitement as the security guy unclipped the red rope and let me, Evan, and Caroline as the last three people into the second screening of The Lighthouse

While I still feel like I have a disparaging takedown of how all of these films showcasing the lower class’s lives essentially become a fetishization of the poor identity when they only get to be experienced by the wealthy elite, I don’t feel like this was the right way to end all of my musings around this experience. The festival and this trip overall were both so incredible and such a blend of so many different emotions that to limit it to just this one viewpoint felt like it wouldn’t do the whole thing justice.