Cannes: Drunken film deals at 5am
The Cannes film festival -- the world's greatest movie showcase -- celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. AFP asked actors and directors who made their names at the festival to recount their highs and lows at the star-studded event. - Cedric Klapisch - French filmmaker Cedric Klapisch, who was about 20 years old when he had his first Cannes experience, still sees the festival as a sort of "pilgrimage". "There's a cathedral side -- mounting the steps, all that -- there's a side that is very religious (like a) procession, and it's true that when we dream of making films, it's something that is very strong," he said. One year, with Argentine screenwriter Santiago Amigorena, Klapisch was on his scooter alongside a girl who was giving them the address to a party, but he was having a hard time hearing her. In his rush to follow her scooter and get the details, "I didn't realise that I had sped off so fast that Santiago was lying on the ground. I picked up Santiago in tatters". That moment remains one of his best memories at the festival. Klapisch said Cannes also has a "kind of crazy night" with hundreds of foreign buyers looking to make movie deals as late as 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning. "Those are quite crazy moments" because "they want to close the deal," he said. "So there is a business side mixed in with the festive side, and it's absurd. There is a side, like that, of a kind of circus that is right at Cannes. There is no other place in the world with something like that." - Kim Seong-hun - South Korean director Kim Seong-hun, whose film "A Hard Day" screened at Cannes in 2014, was struck by the idea of watching a movie by the ocean. "I had a small beer in my hand and I was able to watch the film," he said. "It was something quite special for me that I hadn't had the chance to do before." Kim is also always impressed by the quality of the material at the film screenings, whether inside or outside. "It's really quite mind-blowing because I have been able to recognise sounds that I never heard in my film when I saw it in Korea. I was with people from my production team and they were also surprised, telling me, 'how can we have this kind of sound quality here?' " he said. "It really allowed us to be in the moment, in the same conditions as when we shot the film. So it was very surprising and nice."
