The Chinese actress Gong-Li once said she gets a ‘soul-stirring feeling,’ whenever she arrives at the Cannes Film Festival. It’s a type of atmosphere that is hard to replicate and even harder to explain. There is such a voracious appetite for cinema that it spills into all facets of your experience at the festival. Audience members at a regular screening that could have been the third or fourth screening of that film and despite this, as the opening credits roll a roar of applause erupts from the crowd; the dedication to queuing for last minute tickets is an extreme sport and super competitive; and the style and glamour of the festival is next to perfect that you feel out of place if you’re not dressed up too. All this being said, it is absolutely essential to have some Cannes tips and tricks up your sleeves to orientate yourself and get the most out of your Cannes film festival experience. Whether you have a 3 days in Cannes or Cinephile Accreditation, read on.
Getting a badge to Cannes
This tips and tricks survival guide will presume that you have already gotten your Cinephile or 3 Days at Cannes badge. For more information on the registration process for the accreditations please see the previous post here and below. Now let’s get into it.
Getting acquainted with the schedule
The films in the festival get announced in April, and at the start of May they formalise the schedule so you know what is playing and where. I would advise combing through the schedule and highlight what films are your priorities. Always have a few contingency plans, so if you don’t get a ticket for your first choice film at 7pm, then have another 7pm film selected.
The Ticket Portal: Your best friend and worst enemy
Get used to the ticket portal which will be your best friend and worst enemy while you are there. It is also your portal to films and frustration. You’ll be on your phone a lot so a portable charger is an absolute necessity. The portal will open four days before the first day of the festival, and from then on the reservation portal will open at 9am GMT+1 so that you can reserve tickets for a film in four days time. For example, if you want to see a film on the Wednesday, you have to be ready on the portal at 9am the previous Sunday. A few things to remember about the portal:
- It is not everything – Do not be disheartened if you come away with no tickets before the festival begins – it’s not the end of the world. There are many other ways to get tickets when you are there so don’t worry if you go into it empty-handed.
- You have to work the system – The waiting room opens 2 minutes before the 9am release so get in line quickly. Have multiple tabs open on both your phone and computer so you can access your account from multiple tabs. The system is set up such that it won’t know you are the same account and will let you get into many different virtual queues so you can get to the tickets the quickest. There’s other ways to pick up tickets during the festival we’ll detail below.
- Be aware of where you are in the pecking order – You need to understand the hierarchy of the festival and you’ll see that with the various colour badges that people wear around their lanyards. This is important because your rank on the hierarchy correlates to what order you get access to tickets. Press and producers get access from 4am each morning, while other industry badge holders like distributors, sellers and buyers all get access to the portal at 6am. Cinephiles and 3 Days at Cannes get access at 9am – so you can see why there is a scramble for tickets after five hours of ticketing madness has happened even before you’re even allowed in.
Last Minute Tickets
The biggest question on everyone’s lips is how to get into films closer to the time. Last minute tickets are a staple at Cannes in particular for a reason, because the Last Minute queues are kind of like an institution.
- Just queue up – Except for maybe the gala premiere screenings in the Lumiere, getting into the Last Minute queue for virtually any other film is fair game and you should treat it as such. Just because you don’t have a ticket, shouldn’t discourage you from planning to go to queue up – just do it. You’ll more than likely get in as there’s always no shows.
- The Wee Small Hours – Ah yes, the drunken hour. The early hours of the morning, say between 12am and 2am is peak golden time to go ticket hunting on the portal. People are out partying and in order to avoid getting blacklisted they panic and cancel their ticket for fear their head will be too sore come the morning. I would recommend having the film you want to see the most on your screen (because you’ll probably be out yourself) and just refresh the page constantly for a few minutes during these hours. I got countless tickets this way, I just picked the films I wanted the most and made sure I was clear-headed enough to go after them.
- Rush hour – It seems delusional, and kind of maddening. But in most cases, if you just keep refreshing the page for a screening you’ll more than likely get a ticket. This is especially true anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours before a screening. Someone is sure to pull out and if you’re ready you’ll get it.
- Morning screenings are a godsend – Morning screenings at the Cineum (about a 20 minute bus journey outside of Cannes) are genuinely never full. Either they undersell the tickets or people simply just no show, so you’re practically guaranteed to get in – you just need to get up early.
- The Invitation Game – Bring a pen and paper to Cannes because you’ll need it. For the bigger premieres, people have printed out tickets instead of virtual ones. And because you have to get rid of your ticket at least 1 hour before a Luniere screening if you don’t intend to use it, sometimes you have people milling around the Palais less than an hour to go and in search of someone to give their ticket to. That’s why if you have a pen and paper handy you can just write what film you’re looking for and someone may hand you one. You can get creative with this too – I saw a sign one year that said – ‘Invitation Sil Vous Plait – Or I spoil Game of Thrones ending.’
Getting around the Palais, the Village international and Pavillions
This is kind of important because Cannes is a paradise and a nightmare at the same time so you need to know how to navigate it.
- The Cannes Shuffle aka. take the Pavillion shortcut – If there’s a premiere on, it is an absolute nightmare to get around. Especially if you want to walk past the Palais from the Gare Maritime up the Croisette towards the hotels. A sneaky way of getting around this is instead of walking along the road like all the tourists, just use your badge and go through the entrance to the International Pavillion and go out the other exit that takes you into the beach. See the map below for more detail
- Use the Palais to network and chill out – you are a badge holder so use it. You have free, unlimited access to the Palais which is the huge building that houses the Grand Lumiere theatre and the Debussy etc. it’s also where distributors and sales agents set up their stands in the Village International section. There’s multiple stories in the building where you can literally just chill out and breathe or chat to people. Make sure you use this.
- Get out of Cannes – I don’t mean forever. I mean to catch additional screenings that can be held in the Licorne (20 mins outside of Cannes) or the Cineum (30 mins outside of Cannes). The buses that take this route are the 1,2, 20 and A. With your badge you have free unlimited bus journeys so again – use it.
Red Carpet moments
There are two facets to the red carpet, obviously the first is watching it and the second is roaming around on it.
- How to watch – There are a few places to watch the red carpet from. If you have an apartment over the Palais obviously that’s the easiest, but these are rented out well in advance by agencies and studios. Another way is to queue up to get into the section between the red carpet and the road. Civilians are allowed queue up in here and you can see the cars pull up from there.
- How to roam – Now how to get on the red carpet, which is a journey in itself. Evening screenings are the big ones that everyone and their mother is trying to get into but the likelihood you will get into these ones in the last minute queue is slim as these are golden tickets. What Film For Thought advises is not to underestimate the daytime screenings, as these are just as important and just as glamourous. Try get tickets to a Palais premiere using one of the above avenues in the ticketing section as this is your best bet. Also – don’t sniff at the smaller theatres for example the DeBussy or the Agnes Varda which are equally renowned theatres and regularly have premiere screenings in them.
- But remember – The Cannes staff are extremely strict on taking photos on the carpet. It’s not that it cannot be done but you must be discreet and quick about it.
Networking, schmoozin’ and free coffee, food and drinks
- Food and drink – Save your money and head to the Village International every day between 4.30pm and 6.30pm where a variety of countries are hosting pavillion parties and companies host networking events. These happy hours are open to all badge holders and there is generally free food and drink available that you can avail of as you network with likeminded people!
- Free coffee – Nespresso coffee are sponsors of the festival and they have a permanent stand set up on the middle level of the Palais that serves free coffee all day. Remember this because it will save you a fortune.
- Networking – Cannes is the perfect place to meet people, and we don’t mean in a formal networking event kind of way. The festival presents the perfect opportunity to meet people in the industry in a variety of ways; talk to the person in front of you in the last minute queue, ask someone what films they’ve seen today, or talk to the person next to you in the screening. It’s all for the taking and the best part is you all have something in common with your love of film.
- People watching – Hotels are a no brainer for watching glamourous festival attendees, or seeing the odd celebrity. The main watering holes are the Ritz, the Martinez, the Majestique and even if you don’t spot someone you can sit in a gorgeous, historic hotel.
Luck
This is just as important as anything we’ve said above. Luck is a massive part of your Cannes experience, so sometimes you just have to go with the flow and see where it takes you. Some years are better than others, but you will always see some great films and be dying to come back next year.
FILM FOR THOUGHT 