Cannes Guest Blogger
Boy, do I have a treat for you. My friend Robert Pratten is a British filmmaker who's now living in the States. He made a low budget film called London Voodoo and got it distributed. He's finished his second film and is now at Cannes marketing it to potential buyers. We all know of Cannes as being a top film festival but it is also a major film market. He's agreed to be our guest blogger and update us on what it's like to market your film at Cannes! He has set up two market screenings for his film and has at least one industry party on his schedule. I think he's doing it without a sales agent but I'm not sure about that.
Susan Ee
http://feraldream.com/
Here's his first post:
So it’s Day 1 in Cannes. Arrived on a delayed flight from London, picked up the taxi that I’d pre-booked and got whisked away to the apartment I’ve rented. This year we have an apt in a great location right around the corner to the Marche (market). It’s expensive and there’s no laundry facilities and I’m sharing with a friend, Calum who’s a journalist but it is in a great location and he’s got the pull-out bed. :-)
Without unpacking, the two of us drop our bags and head out for the Registration area where we pick up our passes and goodie bag, Then we part company – Calum heads for the press room in the Majestic hotel to get details of a cocktail party tonight and I head for the Marche where I need to hand over a tape of my film, MindFlesh.
MindFlesh is an erotic psychological thriller about a man that f**ks his own mind. Based on a horror by a San Francisco Buddhist, William Scheinman, we’ve had great reviews but I’m at Cannes to give the film its first market screening – and good reviews alone won’t be enough to ensure an audience. This is my forth time in Cannes, so I don’t consider myself a novice, but it is the first time I’ve organised a market screening.
Having handed over the film I head out to the American Pavilion (AmPav) where I collect another pass and sit out by the beach with a latte to type this first diary entry. Every country represented in Cannes has its only pavilion where it can promote itself to producers looking for great locations, tax breaks or technical facilities. But the AmPav is the only one that charges for membership because it’s the only pav that receives no State funding. To my mind it’s always been the best and the place I typically hang out at the most.
I’m going to go back to the apartment now to change for tonight’s cocktail bash and intensive drinking..*cough*.. I mean networking… more tomorrow.
