Garbage Man in Cannes:
A Cinema Studies Student's Escapades at the World's Most Prestigious Film Festival
Cinema Studies graduate student Peter Kuplowsky shares his memories of his summer at Cannes 2009.
Festival de Cannes
In my first five days working as an intern for The American Pavilion at the Festival de Cannes, I had seen more than a dozen films, walked two red carpets, stood arm’s length from Martin Scorsese and Roger Ebert (on more than one occasion), sat in on an intimate Q&A with Francis Ford Coppola, all while enjoying the balmy sunshine and fine wine that the South of France is famous for.
It finally struck me on that fifth day that this was really happening. This was not a fever dream brought on while watching Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale. I was halfway across the world attending the cinephile paradise that is Cannes. And there was still another week to go.
I must admit, the internship assigned to me was not glamorous. I wasn’t assisting publicists coordinate swanky press parties as some of my peers found themselves doing, but I was lucky to avoid the inflexible menial assignments that included waiting tables at The American Pavilion tent. Instead I found myself assigned among the ranks of The American Pavilion’s “Green Team”. Formed in 2006 the year Al Gore came to Cannes with “An Inconvenient Truth”, the team is tasked with promoting environmental awareness and collecting recycling from the companies that have set up booths in the Marche Du Cinema, the marketplace that runs in conjunction with the festival itself and where thousands of films are bought and sold to international markets each year. At 4,000 odd companies and over 10,000 participants, the amount of paper wastage through distributed sales-sheets, posters and festival screening guides is pretty staggering.
Though admirable, I was technically working as a garbage man. But as this was my ticket to a Cannes accreditation badge, I made the most of the job. The flexible hours allowed me to avoid scheduling conflicts when watching films, and since every film company was using an exorbitant amount of paper, I was given a reason to approach and interact with nearly every booth in the marketplace. Better yet, since several of the larger film corporations set up offices in the many luxurious hotels that litter the waterfront, I was able to freely enter their offices as I pleased. Who’s going to turn away someone that’s trying to save the planet one bin at a time?
As luck would have it, some of these film companies would throw out the much sought after Marketplace Bible – a five hundred page book issued to companies that contained telephone and e-mail contacts for nearly every participant of the Market (producers, distributor reps, publicists, etc.). And so rings true that age-old expression that one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.
By the end of the festival I had brought my film quota up to 30+ features, had rubbed shoulders with Eli Roth and Terry Gilliam, missed a phone call with Quentin Tarantino (long story), witnessed the infamous Cannes audience “boo” during Lars Van Trier’s Antichrist (which I rather liked) and thanks again to my recycling duties discovered just exactly how much Tarantino and his “basterds” were spending at the Carlton hotel. Here’s hoping for next year’s interns that certain studios don’t invest in a paper shredder.
For more information about the internship program that made this adventure possible, visit: http://www.ampav.com/.
Peter Kuplowsky is currently pursuing his masters in Cinema Studies at
the Cinema Studies Institute, Innis College. He graduated from U of T in June 2009 with a Cinema Studies Specialist.
Peter was the recipient of the Aron Avraham Tanny Scholarship in Cinema Studies (2008)
and the 30th Anniversary Award in Cinema Studies (2009)
2009