Another Late Night

4.45am Sunday 18th May 2008

Just returned from another madcap excursion around Cannes and the the surrounding villages. I swear the campsite moves every night. We didn't learn from last night and ended up taking Barcord James home again and got dreadfully lost, despite Andy's claims to know Cannes like the back of his hand. Took us over an hour to get home - and I was on the ball and wide awake this time. Si and Stu were in the back of the van in pitch black, loud hailing us from the megaphone If Andy wasn't so stubbon that he knew the way, we might have got home earlier!

Things are starting to take shape. We've found a fantastic wi-fi cafe and have been able to upload and update what we're up to. Amazingly we were able to park in exactly the same spot as last night, though yet again, were thwarted with torrential showers and sat in the van drinking warm beer until the rain stopped. At this rate, I'm gonna run out of clothes - I packed expecting blazing sunshine. Having set up the van earlier in the day, we were able to get films on straight away and soon had several people gathering round the van. It's difficult to miss a bright yellow transit van festooned with sponsors on the Croisette.

Little lovely coincidences kept happening throughout the evening. We screened one of the successes of last year, Shantell Town, and a friend of Paulette James, the director, randomly walked by and stopped for a chat. A bit later, screening Safe Zone, a film from this year's selection, the actor, director and producer walked by. We've had people dropping in films who didn't manage to get them to us before we left. It's great meeting the people whose films I'm growing more and more attached to each time we screen them. I got to speak to a lot of people last night, which was great, until Andy told me I had something black stuck in my teeth. I am mortally embarassed. A word of advice - steer clear of garibaldi biscuits when in the public spotlight. And we finally hooked up with Janus - last seen before Lyon on the way down. We've been showing some of his films and the intro to Stu's documentary, The Plymouth-Dakar Challenge.

We carried on til about 1, having safely removed a random crazy drunken guy who came and danced in front of the screen and then started to drift to sleep on one of our chairs, then headed off for some food. In all the craziness of the day, we realised we hadn't eaten since out sausage feast. I had possibly the most revolting crepe I have ever eaten in a seedy little cafe with the tiniest toilet I think I have ever seen.

Roll on tomorrow. Tonight was a success and I really enjoyed myself.

Cath xxx