Yachts in Cannes. Photo credit: jthornett http://flic.kr/p/H6jgk
So, this weekend I was in Cannes for the Film Festival. Okay, fine that’s not strictly true; the Film Festival was in Cannes and I happened to be there too. As promised when I tweeted about the Where in the World competition (see end of article for details), here’s my short Cannes review.
I was invited by my old friend Marc to stay in his wonderful home across the bay from Cannes where there was an eclectic mix of guests, ranging from the young and beautiful to the intellectual, to the film-connected, to the downright trendy. And I was there too.
We stayed home the first night where Marc hosted a dinner party for his girlfriend Sita. The inimitable trendsetter Mounir Moufarrige (of St. Dupont fame) was there with his rock star daughter Tat, and his fashion-extravaganza son Patrick of U-Boat watches. Also there were The Times‘s Cannes Nightowl reporter Chris Sullivan and the younger brother of an actor whose name I’ve been forbidden to mention but who has recently been in a pretty decent film playing a General in a remake of a certain Shakespearean play.
After spending the best part of Saturday nursing well-deserved hangovers, we ventured into Cannes. First up was a boat party hosted by an American on the not-small O’mega yacht. Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, Lost, The Fast and The Furious) temporarily set aside her acting in favour of mixing decks and, judging by the look on her face, she took it all very seriously. Other than a little hitch that left Gerard Butler, among others, waiting impatiently on the jetty for a tender to the yacht, the whole thing went off very nicely thank you. And if anyone’s wondering where the Greeks have put all that money the country is short of, I can confirm that at least some of it appears to have been sunk into a rather large vessel with Greek flag, name, and crew, last seen accommodating parties in the bay of Cannes.
And if anyone’s wondering where the Greeks have put all that money the country is short of, I can confirm that at least some of it appears to have been sunk into a rather large vessel with Greek flag, name, and crew, last seen accommodating parties in the bay of Cannes.
We hustled back to shore after a couple of hours, crossing paths as we did so with a tender full of unaccompanied girls each more pretty than the next, each more jaded than the next, and each dressed more like they were there for work (not,of course, of the conventional sort) than by choice. The Cannes pop-up version of the David Lynch conceived and designed Paris nightclub Silencio was our next stop and a very pleasant surprise it was too. Wonderfully friendly and efficient service, good music, good-looking crowd, plus we had an excellent table in the heart of the action, on the roof terrace just between the inside section and the infinity pool. There was plenty of mischief, none of it fit for publication in the esteemed Periscope Post, followed by a fly-by visit to Le Baron – it looks like all the Paris clubs are doing pop-ups this year – and then to the house for recaps around the kitchen table and yet more drinks.
By the time everyone had crawled out of their caves on Sunday, there was a general consensus to follow the Good Book’s mandate and take a day of rest – happily spoiled of course by a delightfully boozy, albeit far from culinary, pizza and wine dinner at home arguing over how long it will take before Greece falls out of the Euro currency. That and about which film star you’d sleep with if you could pick anyone you liked and not have to make conversation with them.
Finally as the rain started bucketing down in Cannes on Monday, I slipped away to return to London for some sunshine, and to the office for some relaxation after the circus that is the Cannes Film Festival.
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Each time I travel you can have a bit of fun with a Where In the World competition. I’ll tweet hints (including pics) of where I’m off to and we’ll see how long it takes for you to guess the location; you can retweet your own followers for help too, and when I get back I’ll write you a little review and publish it here on The Periscope Post. Hope you’ll enjoy it.
