Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.
As part of our Cannes 2024 coverage, we asked filmmakers and critics for their notes on anything but the films at the festival.
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Isabel Stevens
(managing editor, Sight and Sound)
Overheard at the festival: (on the Croisette) “Do you have time for a photoshoot with Jean-Claude Van Damme?”; “The security guard for this party said to my friend, ‘You have to wear heels. Flat shoes are not allowed.’”; “I think I need..maybe… $50 million”; “They are spending £370 million to send people to Rwanda. Can you believe that?”; (on the beach) “Is this the Atlantic Ocean?”; (at the security gates) “Is this a Camembert?”; (at parties) “I’m not going to thank my husband. He’s shite. But he does what he’s told.”; “I’m going to get ChatGPT to write my speech.”; “I wanted to say to him, ‘You are shameless, you are past your sell-by date, and you have been standing in the way of people like me for too long.’ But I just smiled”
Vadim Rizov
(director of editorial operations, Filmmaker)
Most pleasant surprise of this year’s Cannes: there’s a new Filipino restaurant conveniently close to the main center of activities, and it’s good! Actually, not so new: Kabayan’s two-year-anniversary is May 22, but I just didn’t notice it last year. Every day they have a rolling selection of items, cafeteria-style, and three tables to eat them at; the to-go option is powering this capsule. They’re clearly not accustomed to having non-Filipino diners; my first time in there, with a group of four, the only one among us that’s not a pasty white guy was asked, “Are you half-Filipino?” (He’s Mexican.) “No,” he replied, “but we’ve both been colonized by the Spanish.”
Ela Bittencourt
(contributor, Sight and Sound)
On the penultimate day of the festival, I spent part of my morning in a Taiwanese gay sauna, thanks to the VR experience Traversing the Mist, by Tung Yen-Chu. While crowds upstairs at Cineum lined up for Sean Baker or another hot ticket, three of us—myself and two other “bathers”—stumbled about a dark room, headsets on, grabbing at empty space. In our virtual world, we were opening doors to rooms where naked men were enjoying a sauna, cruising, or having sex. In the mirrors of the elevators, we were all men with the same face and roughly the same body type. The nakedness was no news, neither was watching a sex act, but somehow my mind registered the being “embodied” in another’s “flesh” as deeply voyeuristic. It felt like a utopian frontier, a preview of a place we might get some day.
Elena Lazic
(editor, Animus)
There are two kinds of journalists in Cannes: those who wear practical clothes, presumably focusing all of their mental energies on the films, and the others, who understand that a festival is that rare occasion a critic must seize to showcase their immaculate sense of style. Film festivals prove once and for all that taking care of how you look does not have to be a selfish, narcissistic thing: the “practical” attendees also tend to be those whose bad breath and generally poor sense of hygiene distract everyone around them from the film playing on screen.
Tyler Taormina
(director, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point)
Of all the insane emotions and encounters I’ve had at the Cannes Film Festival, the highlight that comes to mind is discovering on the morning of my world premiere that I will be an uncle. My entire family attended the fest. Uncle Tybie—coming soon.
Beatrice Loayza
(contributor, Film Comment)
I lost my new sunglasses and, somehow, my neti pot, which I’d call a success given the festival’s black-hole tendencies. My thighs feel great after spending two weeks climbing up and down the hill to and from my apartment—this despite the surge in red meat consumption and lack of greens. I’m sad to not have seen Ramses, a local whippet that runs free around a stretch of the commercial backstreets where I like to eat lunch—I met him last year and know he’s still around thanks to a colleague’s Instagram missives. So many cans of Orangina on the Terrasse des journalistes.
Daniel Kasman
(editor-in-chief, Notebook)
In the first week of the festival, you feel an electric current in the air that has less to do with the art of cinema and more to do with the power of the deal, the glamor of prestige. Walking down the Croisette, or any side street, your eyes scan the outdoor cafes, the exceptionally well-heeled passersby. You feel as if everyone could be somebody. In the second week, the Marché—the industry side of the festival—ends, and the power and population dynamic flips. Now, regular visitors tag in, many from the anchored cruise ship, and the coiled focus of atmosphere dissipates into the lethargic flow of tourism. What only days ago felt like the world's center of cinema has transformed into something else. By the festival's end, you feel as if everyone could be anybody.
