Dance Iranian Style at Cannes Marche Du Film #1

On Wednesday may the 13th at 17.00 o’clock I arrive in Cannes. It is a fantastic spring weather and watching people walking around in short sleeves and short skirts and trousers seem unreal.  It felt like a dream, now is a reality. Months of preparation. It began with just a simple registration, but taking part to Marche du Film Cannes takes more than just a registration. Everything should be ready. Designing poster and dvd cover, printing some, uploading everything including the whole film on #Cinando and booking a hotel, tickets and answering about forty emails and setting meetings and appointments everyday while life is not just about Cannes only and there are more things to be done.

Finally everything is ready thanks to enormous effort of our director Farshad Aria by making two beautiful trailers of the film, a fantastic dvd cover/ poster, uploading film, pictures over and over again and filling many forms.

And after many sleepless nights and long days and not to forget hours of traveling ( Cannes seems to be at the next corner, but truly it took me 11 hours from a to z to be here.

In Nice at the bus stop to Cannes there is a huge line. Everybody goes to Cannes Festival, everybody is excited but more than that tired of travelling. A TV journalists is running between the passengers and Nice own habitants asking people about Film Festival Cannes and showing them big pictures of Sean Penn and Quentin Tarantino and asking if they know them. Of course all the travelers know them, and to my surprise almost none of the habitants.

In the bus to Cannes I try to enjoy the beautiful nature that passes me through the windows, I can’t! I am too tired and fall in sleep. And believe me I am not the only one!

The first thing I notice in Cannes are the people in beautiful dresses heading to the Festival Palace. It reminds me of Iranian New year,’ Norouz’ when everybody walks around in beautiful gowns and dresses.

It is busy, very busy and the security people seem to be in charge.  I have seen the pictures of the festival so many time, I don’t even need to ask where should I be. I walk to the Festival Palace to get my badges and information. There is again a huge line but soon I have my badge and a heavy bag full of information. I wonder where I should get the time to read all these books. 

The opening is in an hour, I sneak to the press balcony where I have a good view on the red carpet, but I lost interest soon. I know that Cannes is not just about the films only, unfortunately, but that other side of the festival is is not part of my world.

Outside of the palace is super busy with people who try to take a view of the red carpet and its stars.   But what strikes my attention is a big group of  pretty girls in beautiful dresses who hold a paper board with the text: Invitation Please! It took me a couple of minutes to get the meaning behind this action.  These girls did everything to get a ticket to the opening show and I think, by the look of it, some of them can be very lucky. 

I walk away from the palace with my heavy baggage and a huge amount of information and heading to my first appointment at the Majesty Hotel.  The street is much busier than before and the security guys have only eyes for the celebs. The rest should wait, even the pretty girls in pretty dresses. I feel lost in this chaos! 

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