61st Cannes Film Festival

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The 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival began last Wednesday. It's been really interesting how much the city has changed in the last few weeks! Within two weeks many restaurants had put up additions that pretty much doubled their size. It definitely is turning into tourism season too! It had been getting busier and busier down by the palace where the festival takes place and now it's crazy!
Wednesday was the first day of the festival so our school had a meeting about what to expect and how we can see some of the movies. We did get a pass which allows us in to certain movies, we just have to wait in line for awhile in order to get in. Other movies require invitations, which are given out on a fairly regular basis at both the college and a tent in town. You either have to wait in line for awhile or just get really lucky to get a good invitation though. I know some people who waited in line for three hours but they lucked out and got an invitation to the premier of "Kung Fu Panda." They got to walk the red carpet and were in the same theater as the stars, Jack Black and Angelina Jolie. That would be a cool experience, of course they couldn't mingle on the red carpet with them, they said they were just kind of shuttled in on the side and walked up the stairs and inside as quickly as possible. They can still say they were on the red carpet though! I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that, I don't think I care enough to stand in line for three hours, that's quite awhile!
The first night of the festival a friend and I walked down to the Palace and saw some of the celebrities walk the red carpet. It was interesting. Of course it was really busy and the crowd was horrible. I could kind of see them if I stood on my tip toes but I could see them much better looking at a screen! I'm sure I could have seen them even better from a couch at home but it was cool to actually be there. We saw Danny Glover, Kate Blanchett, Eva Longoria, Sean Penn, and Natalie Portman that day. The movie premiering was "Blindness," about everyone in the world going blind except the main character.
The next day was the premier of "Kung Fu Panda," so I got to see Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Jack Black. I tried to stand in a different area to maybe see them better but I still ended up just watching the screen, I'm not sure if going down there is actually worth it.
So, I've only actually seen one movie so far. Yesterday a group of us saw one called "Waltz with Bashir," it's animated and about an Israeli army mission in the first Lebanon war in the early eighties. Definitely not a typical cartoon but it was really good with a strong message. It's gotten good reviews here so far and some kids at the college hope it wins the Palm d'Or, which is the top honor. The movie is in Hebrew and German with French subtitles so I would love to see it again with English subtitles but I got the meaning for the most part. Tonight we're going to see a film called "Tokyo" so hopefully that's pretty good! Movies here really are from all over the world, it's really interesting!
There is also a screen set up right on the beach and every night they play an older movie that is free for everyone. It's a really cool idea, I think I will go down tomorrow night when they play some episodes of Looney Tunes, that'll be a bit lighter and more feel good than typical films shown in the festival!
So far the festival has gone well, the crowds are pretty bad but I kind of expected that. I'm sure I'll see quite a few movies I would never have seen if I wasn't here and maybe I will get lucky and see a celebrity or two in real life.

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Photos

The red carpet
It's rolled up to be cleaned