I spent 10 days in Cannes, attending the famous film festival on the Croisette. It’s my first Cannes. This will be the first in a series of blog posts of Cannes impressions, of the festival, the movies, the town.

Below the Cannes logo presentation that plays this year before every screening (the music is “Aquarium” from Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carneval of the Animals). No 25 minutes of previews and commercials, just this 30 second amuse bouche and then right the movie. Oh, and rest assured I turned off my phone and put it away right after filming this:

I got to Cannes as part of a delegation of Indie filmmakers organized by Darwin Reina, who runs both Barcelona’s Love and Hope Film Festival (where “The Pit and the Pendulum – a musicabre” played) and NYC’s The North Festival (which screened both Pit and “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre”.

Here’s one selfie with a good sampling of our group, many of us stayed in a villa together during our collective Cannes experience.

Here is the red carpet leading up the the Grand Lumière, Cannes’ main theater in the Palais. This is a rare moment of quiet on the carpet, in the morning, before premiere madness ensues. I’ll get to that later.

Inside the Palais are many more theaters, as well as the film market, the Marché du Film.

Some impressions of the film market, early on the first day, before things got more hectic.

Cannes’ main prizes are handed out at the end of the festival, but one film prize had a booth in the marché and handed out their prizes to different honorees each day during the festival,

Another group selfie. A lot of these are taken all the time by tons of people everywhere all the time…

Me posing for a distinguished (?) selfie with the Cannes ’24 poster and red carpet looming behind .

Another favorite selfie taking location…

My first Cannes movie was an 8:30am post-premiere morning screening of “Furiosa”. Turns out the whole tux get up is only required for the evening premieres in the Grand Lumiére – but since it was my first time walking that carpet, I got all dolled up for this one too.

Inside the Grand Lumiére.

I attended a couple premieres of films screening in other theaters, but only one of those famous Cannes Grand Lumiére red carpet premieres with all the works, and that was the midnight screening of Nicolas Cage in “The Surfer”.

I didn’t have a ticket, but managed to get in through the last-minute access line.

Here might be a good time to explain that getting tickets for Cannes screenings – heck getting to Cannes – is notoriously difficult. Just to be accredited you are vetted for your filmmaker bon fides. Then depending on what kind of badge you have – you have or don’t have access to the on-line ticket office, or the marché du film or other areas. You are constantly showing your badge (and your ticket if it’s a screening) and going through security and having your bags checked at various entry points and all theaters.

The fact that I managed a last-minute access entry to the premiere of “The Surfer” meant I was one of the last in the audience to be seated; but that also meant I was still outside and right by the red carpet when Nicolas Cage and the rest of the company from the film arrived for the traditional Cannes premiere red carpet photo opportunity.

So I got some pretty good pics with my phone…

“Neek, Neek, over here!”

No that wasn’t me, that was the professional photographers calling out.

But he does seem to be looking right at me here, doesn’t he.

After the cast finally went in, the rest of the audience, me included, were able to enter the theater too.

Another Cannes premiere tradition, the standing ovations (that are ludicrously timed by the media) at the end of the screening, with images of the cast members accepting their applause being projected onto the big screen.

As you can see, as a late-minute access audience member, my seat was way up in the back of the balcony.

In addition to the the massive film market inside the Palais, there are also numerous pavilions like the one below all along the beach east and west of the Palais. These mostly represent different nations representing their film industries.

There’s also the Cinema de la Plage, daily open air late night movie screenings on the beach.

Okay, this will do it for Part 1, or else I’ll never get it posted while Cannes is still ongoing. I have a lot more to share, more premieres, more Cannes-the-town, and some surprises. Stay tuned.