Notes on Cannes from a Van #1

Last night was a funny one.
For the last three months everything has gone into Cannes in a Van Year 3. It’s not an easy thing to get up and running every year when you have a pressured day job and most of your free time is taken up with all things van-shaped. It’s expensive (this year no sponsorship – tough climate and lack of time got the better of me) and time-consuming (thankfully Sam was on board to ease things up a little this time) with no ‘actual’ rewards apart from the satisfaction of knowing we did something good for filmmakers.
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The first two screening nights were great. Thursday: rocked up on the Croisette no probs, showed about 3 hours worth of films, met great people and went home at around 2 for some well-deserved vin rosé. Friday: Similar kind of vibe with more rosé consumed. Saturday night: The busiest night in the whole festival – DISASTER (in my head). Park up early, all-be-it far up the Croisette… all is good. ‘Hmmm, we’re chilled, let’s go for dinner’… come back, no van. Oh.
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I guess at some stage it was going to happen, we’ve been lucky these past years. In Cannes, you see cars towed every five minutes, but not big high-top yellow Transits which are trying to do a good thing for filmmakers and independent cinema. Maybe we thought the van was too big for them, or too British for them to bother with. Well, we got that wrong.
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It’s just that all I wanted for that busiest night of the festival was to screen films for 4 hours to people who’d never seen them, or even considered short-film from a van as a form of entertainment. Instead, I was racing around in Janus’s ‘support’ van trying to get ours back (thanks Janus for being cool). We drove back, got papers, went to the police station, got more papers, went back to the pound, paid 96€ and then drove round for ages. Finally pitched up at around 00.45, screened films and left. It was busy, but we were quiet. Disappointed.
Tonight better not go down like that.

Andy