Wanna see my picture of George?

I'm home in the (relatively) freezing north, being rained on (well, not right now at this precise moment because that would mean my roof had a hole in it) and kind of semi-wishing I was still in France. Or at least somewhere warm - California would be quite nice right now.


So, to round off this year's Cannes - the SFC party on Friday was nice, very mellow for me as I just sat at the end of the Majestic Beach pier drinking champagne and dangling my feet over the sea, until I bumped into one of my other flatmates, Rachel, and a lovely Scottish couple from the Scottish Screen party, had a chat then headed home. Saturday was just a souvenir/shopping/goodbye kind of day - the Marche closed at lunchtime and just about the only pavilion still functioning was the American pavilion. Zhara and I promised to swap pictures - a Colin and a Rupert for a Brangelina

though I think actually my picture of George Clooney was my (almost) favourite of the week:

He's in there somewhere, I promise.

I came out of the International Village around 6:45 on Thursday, the premiere of Ocean's 13 was due to start at 7:30 and this is what the place looked like - people hanging out of trees, off balconies, up step-ladders, hoping for a glimpse of glamour and glitz

The crazy thing is, the vast majority of people have absolutely no chance of seeing the real stars in real life - what they're going to see is the replay on a big screen of the stars walking up the red carpet, described by a French commentator as they do it. I just liked the idea of taking pictures of people taking pictures of a picture of a famous person. Bizarre. But then, as Steven said, if fans didn't turn out to see the stars and the films that they star in, we'd be out of business.


Anyway, on the whole, a good Cannes. Very different to last year - I think you either go for the festival, or for the market. I would've liked to see more films, but on the other hand, I worked pretty hard at getting meetings and making contacts, so it was a different approach and one that paid off, I think. I only saw 3 features last week but I saw about 30 shorts, and hopefully the features I missed will be available eventually either on the big screen or on DVD.

It seems to have flown by all too quickly, although while I was out there it felt like I'd been there for ever. Roll on next year - when I'll remember my toothbrush, anti-bug spray, de-bug cream, and painkillers.