Naked Sushi Invitations to film festivals

I'm back in LA/USA, the land of XL everything, ice, salad dressing options, spicy food, and variety.  When I say variety-I mean it in every sense of the word.  From the people, to food, to cars, to fashion plus, plus! I never realized how diverse the USA is until visiting Europe. Even though we have our issues it seems that we are able somehow to co-exist within close proximity to so many cultures, religions, nationalities, and ethnicities that I did not see over there. Although they embrace internationalism and new ideas, etc. I just did not see them all living together like here in the south of France and Rome.  That is the beauty of the US and of Los Angeles.  I absolutely loved my trip to the South of France and to Rome. I could totally live there. It's beautiful and inspiring. I now understand a little how and why this place was the source of inspiration of so many great artists.  I could only be so lucky to get to film over in Europe!

One thing I will add that I found odd was that the beautiful seaside restaurants of Cannes at the Croisette are not allowed to be open other than during the day except July, August, and during the festival. How can that be good for a business? I guess that they are trying to funnel business to the other restaurants across the street.  I saw that as an interesting use of government authority over business enterprise.  Mike and I spoke with one restaurant managers and he told us that he wished he could serve us a drink and dinner so we could enjoy the beautiful sunset while dining. But he said that they would get a huge fine!  I was surprised at this. Maybe someone can share with me the reasoning behind this law. Secondly, I would have to get used to the constant strikes though. During the festival, the electric company shut off electricity to several shops and restaurants across from the Palais. Riot police were everywhere. But nothing scary seemed to happen.  This last Tuesday the trains went on strike in France and the Paris airport struck. It's a good thing we did not have to rely on a train or fly through Paris to get back home on Tuesday. Otherwise we would have been stranded! Not good for a traveller who does not speak the language.  The family we rented a studio from said that teachers also strike during the school year forcing parents to take off work to watch their kids. They also shared their views of the French perception of US policies towards healthcare and immigration. We shared ours with them and we had a nice meeting of the minds. I would say the hardworking middle class from my observations are not so different from us.  I must say though that it takes some major lifestyle adjustments, but mostly for the better I think. For instance, I hope that I continue to walk a ton everyday. Even if I don't have a particular destination that I am trying to get to for a meeting, event, lunch or dinner, or sightseeing.  I hope to continue building the new international relationships that I have made and make new ones.  I hope to learn more about other world cultures through filmmaking and/or promoting my film bringing awareness not only to myself but to others.  There is something to be said about countries/cultures that have been around for hundreds of years-or centuries.  I realize that I only scratched the surface in my little whirlwind tour and know so little. 

I hope that Naked Sushi will give me an excuse to travel to festivals all over but that I will have the opportunity to work on other projects soon that will bring me back over there!  I will update as things progress. Another little bit of advise I will give here is that I learned that Cannes is pronounced "CAN" as in "YES I CAN". It is not pronounced "KAHN" as in "STAR TREK II-WRATH OF KAHN."  I was corrected a lot by folks here in the states telling me it was "KAHN." Now I know. So I now bestow this new found wisdom unto you. :) Thank you for reading and stay tuned! PS we received invitations to Raindance Film Festival and Levante Film Festivals. The Levante was more personalized and I feel good about this one!

Getting Around Cannes and good news for Naked Sushi

Getting around Cannes is one of the important factors to consider when you decide to visit. Of course price is probably the number one factor in where you wind up staying but keep this in mind. The cab rides are really expensive and the buses are pretty infrequent, especially if you are staying out of town. Even if you are in say Le Cannet, you may be a 5-10 minute walk to the bus but the night bus is pretty infrequent. Holidays and Monday-Wednesday is also tricky in areas just outside of Cannes. Taxi's charge a premium to come pick you up outside of Cannes-if they show up.  A lot of people stay as far out as Nice and other towns. They take the train in. 

This is all good with the exception of the inconvenience of having to stay in town all day and night without freshening up. But if you don't mind that then its no big deal. It's actually nice outside of town and in surrounding areas. There are so many beautiful and quaint villages and seaside towns to visit. But if you want to dress up and enjoy the nightlife, most likely you will want to wear something different than what you wore all day.  Plus, parties do not revolve around bus and train schedules. Hopefully next year we can be closer and/or get a car to be more mobile and take more advantage of night life. But we did do a heck of a lot on a limited budget and starting off completely unaffiliated and not connected! Not bad for newbies!  

The good news for Naked Sushi is that we had several film fest directors/programmers watch NS. We also have buyers nationally and internationally looking at our film. We hope to get offers soon to build our audience. We also look forward to our upcoming meetings and phone calls to new contacts with producers!!  What an exciting time for us!

Tomorrow morning I wake up on my birthday in ROME! We walked all over the Colosseum and Paletino area plus back over to the Spanish Steps, etc back over to the Vatican area. I am excited about tomorrow. We are heading to the Vatican and then flying back to Cannes. Tuesday we fly back to LA! I am excited about the upcoming work ahead!

More thoughts on Cannes

The experience in Cannes was a crash course in European travel and learning how to navigate a high profile film festival with a lot of restricted access.  I feel that in a lot of respects I got to do a lot and had access to more than most first time Cannes Festival goers. For this I am grateful. Currently I am in Rome reflecting on my experiences, the festival, and the people I have met. I will be adding to the blog as ideas, memories, and thoughts come to me. The festival was a bit of a blur. I do wish someone would have written a bit of a survival/How to Guide for newbies.  

Luckily, I am not shy and I am not afraid to go up and speak with people.  Mike is the same way.  Many of the experiences we had would not have happened if we did not take the time to go up to people and network.  This is the number one lesson that I learned. I will be putting together my Cannes Film Festival Newbie Guide together over the next couple of weeks.  

I will say that now after spending 2 days in Rome, that going to Cannes was like an international creative business convention, a meeting of international minds. Visiting Rome has made me feel like a tourist!  Fellow tourists are less open to talk to you here in Rome versus in Cannes for the festival. Of course there were a couple people who flaunted their assumed superiority because of their more "High-Profile" Hollywood success. One actress referred to people in the Carlton drinking 25 dollar drinks in the bar as "Riff Raff" lol!!!  Overall, people of different levels in the business were pretty friendly and helpful.

One cool thing is that by week two, we were able to help give advice to people about how the Palais and screenings work for instance.  As a short film corner filmmaker we receive only so many points per day with a maximum accrued number.  Some "Premium" screenings such as the premieres like "Up" would take all of our points and some like "Inglorious Bastards" we could never have enough.  If you have a feature in the festival you get more points and can reserve a seat in advance before the short film corner folks. Of course studio people and other market or press badges have their systems as well.  You must have a tux or a black suit with bow-tie for men to attend the Lumiere screenings. This is where the big premieres are shown. There are several very nice theatres with multiple screenings.

We stood in line to see two movies.  "Agora" was in the 400+ theatre Salle Soixante and "Dog Tooth" was in Debussy with over 1000 seats.  Agora was like a female Gladiator movie. It was beautifully shot and I would guess controversial for American audiences due to the religious aspects showing Christians in a very negative light. It's a good story and moves perhaps a little slowly at times but worth seeing.  It's a Spanish film production starring Rachel Weiss. Her performance was real and poignant.  "Dog Tooth" is a Greek film that is wildly perverse and provocative but good.  It received a standing ovation at our showing.  This is definitely art house and fringe. Indie audiences will love it. The film with the most buzz seemed to be "Antichrist". I don't have the stomach to see this one.

I wish I had more time to experience more films but by the time I figured out the system I was too busy networking to take time to enjoy all that the actual festival itself has to offer. Another cool point to add is that the movies are free with the badge! So if you can get in, all you need is your badge! No extra charges!

Our last day in Cannes we said goodbye to some folks who had booths in the Palais, watched a couple shorts and made a few more contacts. One is Vincenzo, a talented filmmaker from Sicily. He has a short "Being Handy" that will be in Dances with Films in LA soon. If you are in LA you should make sure that you see it.  It is brilliant and hilarious!  The second half of the day we decided to venture to Nice and Cimiez to visit the Chagall and Matisse museums. It will be interesting to compare the religious subject matter in Chagall's and Matisse's paintings to works in Roman Cathedrals. I can't wait to see the Sistine Chapel in person!

Yesterday we flew into Rome and we met a Greek Producer. She asked for a copy of Naked Sushi. I hope that will turn into a good contact as well. Once we arrived in Rome we started right away near the Vatican. We pretty much walked our way through so many places over the course of 8 hours. Highlights were the Trevi Fountain, window shopping, Pantheon, Piazza Nirvano, and the Spanish Steps. But I loved absolutely everything I have seen. We also peaked into every church possible. I started getting sick so today we took it easy. I could not communicate my symptoms properly yesterday at the pharmacies and all they recommended was to go to an emergency room for a cold!  But today I managed to get Actifed but I would pay $100 for some Dayquil right now or equivalent!  Today we walked from near the Vatican all the way to the Colosseum.  Dinner across from the Colosseum was pretty cool as well. 

Cannes party on Yacht

Greetings from Cannes! It's another gorgeous day in Cannes and I will say that we had a glorious very long afternoon and evening yesterday starting with a sneak screening of a documentary called Great Directors. It's a great academic piece especially for an American and someone who has not been to film school. Angela Ismailos, highlights several directors that have influenced her and/or she loves there work. This was her first film as well and it was really nice meeting someone in the same boat so to speak.We had a spectacular and surreal experience on her yacht that she designed named the Barracuda.  Plenty of food, champagne, and mojitos! They certainly know how to throw a big Promo party! The Gypsy Kings were the onboard entertainment. What a truly wonderful experience. I have enjoyed the convergence of so many diverse cultural backgrounds and consider myself very lucky to be among them. When we first arrived I could have only hoped to have been invited to such a party and now we can say that we experienced an exclusive invitation only yacht party!

Thoughts and Happenings Cannes

Yesterday was a pretty chill day. It was super hot and humid-for an Angeleno. We hit the Palais hard and finished up visiting the booths that we wanted to visit and  had another screening of NS. We had a really nice response from a Producer that we got to come see it. Then we headed over to the UK Pavillion again where we had a nice chat with a British writer who is good friends with Neil Purvis (latest writer of James Bond movies). I told him of my dream of directing one of those movies and I gave my opinion about the perverse way they kill their female victims in the movies.  I requested that he tell his friend that he should come up with something else more clever than that. lol!! But that I loved everything else and the direction that the franchise was going in with more of a story line. 

We are getting emails and people coming up to us daily telling us that they enjoyed the film and give us little constructive critiques here and there along with their favorite parts. Everyone seems to have a different scene they mention which is really surprising to me. But with the all the good, this morning I had my first nasty email from presumably an arrogant and jealous, angry cinematographer. He went out of his way to say it was all bad. That's it, nothing positive and no constructive comments. Really? Wow! So unprofessional. I know in the future as well that you can't please everyone and I should expect to have harsh criticism here and there. It's part of the process. But it seems that people would want to be more helpful rather than destructive. I'm happy though because two really good actors from other shorts have expressed interest in working with me on a future projects.  Mostly everyone else is kind, helpful, and enthusiastic. Everyone else here wants to build bridges. 

Anyhoo, Mike and I are still on cloud 9 over our meeting two lovely ladies both named Nathalie. They are reps of one the big PR firms here and they invited us to a private screening and "after party" on a yacht tomorrow that they are hosting. Then if we have time we will go to the Women in Film and TV event at the Kodak Pavillion that we were invited to.  The one from Paris was standing near our table watching tv next to us and we invited her to sit down with us at our table. She pretended not to understand English at first. Then her friend from Cannes sat down and eventually I decided to take a chance and say hi. Ironically the first Nathalie speaks English pretty well and the one from Cannes. The Nathalie in Cannes communicated with Mike in Spanish and English but she really could not understand my English accent at all-lol!!! We had a really good laugh and chat. We also met a really nice guy named Adyl who invited to sit with us too from PAris and Morocco. He was very interested and intrigued with NS but was secretive about his connections or lack thereof regarding the industry here. But he added me to his friends list on facebook. 

Maybe after the parties we will catch another one and/or sneak in. Oh I did forget to mention we just walked into a French Media party and got some cocktails. When we realized no one spoke English we decided to leave and stay off the radar-LOL!! Tonight we are going to a movie and dinner with the potential investor from LA. Wish us luck!!!  Afterwards, I hope to catch some pics of the big Christmas Carol soiree at the Carlton (like the four Seasons) where it will be decorated like a wintery wonderland. They already have fake snow and Christmas trees out front. I will post pictures on photobucket soon and post a link.

Last night we had dinner at the touristy but really cool old Suquest. It's a windy tiny terraced street with mostly restaurants that have indoor and outdoor seating with a very narrow cobblestone street to walk up and down. Dinner was most excellent and we met a nice guy from NYC.

Mike and I are torn about whether to start traveling Wed or Thurs for more sightseeing. Because you never know who you may meet later this week. We will play it by ear and see if we get any meetings set up or invitations stemming from tomorrow's activities. We have another screening set up at 4:15 for NS and hope we can get another good audience.  Scratch that, we just got word we are getting into see AGORA at 4:30 with Rachel Weiss-Yoohoo!!! Mike from LA is getting us in and taking us to dinner. Ok, signing off for now :)

One thing I will say is that I have my work cut out for me and I will have to step up my writing schedules to more than 4-5 hours a day to 8 hours a day!!! Not an easy task for someone who does not or did not consider herself a writer.........I think I can....I think I can....I think I can.....

Naked Sushi World Premiere in Cannes

Another beautiful and successful day in Cannes. We got up super early today to take advantage of the peak busy day at the Palais. But first, I will tell you we had one crazy thing happen last night. The atm ate our card because we didn't take the card back out fast enough. Thank goodness Mike had his whole wallet with him. I left mine in the room and we needed cash for the taxi to get back home-lol!! So we only had a 30 second moment of panic!

This morning before we went to the festival we needed to go somewhere else (Mougin) and take a taxi. This was a challenge because we did not have a phone and we don't really speak French at all. Our adventure in communication began. So, we walked to our favorite boulangerie for breakfast and in my broken French asked for a number for a taxi. I walked to the phone booth and they did not take coins. Quite frankly, I had no clue. So, I went back inside the cafe and requested for them to call for me. This of course took a couple of tries in broken French.  Luckily they really embraced the challenge and began calling the numbers for us. The location we were at in Le Cannet is a little off the beaten path and not on a normal taxi route. They had to call several cab drivers. If we had to do this in French we would have never made it. They even had a hard time describing where we were and had to call several numbers-lol!! 

We made in time to our World Premiere at 12 noon at the Palais in the Short Film Corner screening room.  We had a programmer from a festival come to watch and there was standing room only. We got a lot of positive feedback. We also met someone who is friends with one of our actors (Our Valet in the movie-Marcus Mcgee). What a small world!  

At lunch today we went to the United Kingdom Pavillion and sat on the beachside patio. I met the heads of a German and UK women's film festival and was invited to a special party Tuesday at the Kodak Pavillion.  We also had the opportunity to meet two women producers one from LA and one from AU/UK. They both asked for scripts. Yay!! I will say this, The UK tent has a ton of speakers and a friendly and open attitude. The US pavillion charges (even Americans) 75 euros to go there. Are you kidding me??  Fuhgetaboutit!!  I will just hang with the Brits!

After lunch we finished the Palais booth tours and made some new contacts and met people to speak with later in the week regarding project development. We also met one short distributor and a company who is interested in possibly becoming a sponsor for Lady Filmmakers Film Festival. Double Yay! 

Bonjour! Oh my gosh, what an amazing day!!! Firstly, check out this site with an article about Mike and I at the Short Film Corner at Cannes: http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/cannes/friendly_faces_at_the_short_film_corner. Today we slept in after a very late night out with new friends. Even though we got off to a late start we had a very good day. Three great things happened today. 1) I met with and had a wonderful discussion with one of two programmers from the Palm Springs film festival. She promised to watch my film. She shared some great insight into festival strategies and seemed interested in NS. 2) At the Happy Hour at the Palais we had several filmmakers approach us eager to chat with us about our film and they wanted to meet us-that was really nice and encouraging. 3) Tonight at dinner across from the Palais we sat next a gentleman who was sitting by himself. Our tables were practically touching so after dinner I said hello and struck up a conversation with him. Low and behold he is in the biz and very interested in seeing our film at our World Premiere tomorrow! He also liked my other pitches and is interested in investing in multiple projects. We will set up another meeting prior to heading back to la. 

We have met other writers and directors that are interested in future collaboration. It may seem pointless to some to spend a lot of time with other struggling and aspiring newbie filmmakers but i have found that they are truly worthwhile new contacts and hopefully future friends. Having an open mind and positive attitude really pays off here. I am trying to go see as many of the other short films as possible to learn from and connect. 

Last night we were taken out to dinner to an authentic Southern French Seafood Restaurant. I will give you the highlights. Those who have known me for a very long time will be shocked once they read what I ate last night! Jean-Charles (our new Parisian friend in the biz) ordered. I saw another platter on a different table and I thought I was safe because I saw shrimp and crab on this huge platter. Long story short, I wound up eating small and large sea snails and raw oyster sans sauces! The sea snails were not so bad tasting but I hated the really chewy, gummy consistency of the big, fat, and juicy ones! lol!!!  The delicious local provincial white wine helped to wash it all down thank goodness!!

After we were invited to a gathering with Jean-Charles' friends. We hung out till about 2:30pm and ventured back via taxi. It's almost midnight now and I need to send off a few more emails to short film buyers. Bon Soir.

Cannes

It's 7:45pm on the 3rd day of my trip to the Cannes Film Festival. It has been action packed since we arrived Monday morning at 8am in Nice.  The woman Francoise, who we are renting a studio from, picked us up from the airport. We have a quaint little place about a 20 minute bus ride from near her house. 

Since Monday morning we have travelled around to several cities and familiarized ourselves with the festival process and area.  Yesterday we went to Vermiglia, Italy, Monte Carlo, Monaco, and Eze, France as well and walked around Cannes-ALL IN ONE DAY!! Today Mike and I visted Grasse, France. How cool is that??!!

We have met so many nice people and will write more about some of the beautiful places and funny experiences we have had so far-some revolve around us not speaking the language! lol!!I won't even mention the restaurant in Italy that we'll just say -DID NOT HAVE A TOILET! Luckily most people are very nice and patient with us. But most speak english in Cannes. I feel privileged to interact with the locals outside of Cannes who do not speak english. I just consult my handy phrase and/or french/english dictionary.  We seem to be getting by decently.

The official start of the festival was today. Tomorrow we have our first action packed film festival day. It was very cool watching the red carpet event for the premiere of UP. It is very exciting to be around all of the talented and enthusiastic filmmakers!  

We hope to get into an exclusive event with Francis Ford Coppola discussing his new film Tetro. There are three screenings tomorrow and we hope to get into one of those too. But the icing on the cake would be able to get into the premiere to see Inglorious Bastards next week. They have a last minute line to take place of no-shows.  We can only hope.........

Testing out mobile blog post.

Prepping for the Cannes Film Festival

I am preparing for my first trip to Europe next week! My husband Mike and I are going to Cannes for the Cannes Film Festival. We have a Short "Naked Sushi" in the Short Film Corner.  We have a little studio rented in Le Cannet and in Le Mougins just north of Cannes. 

Not only is this my first trip to Europe, it's my first film too.  While making Naked Sushi I was lucky enough to have been able to work with two other lovely ladies in key crew positions. My Co-producer and Cinematographer are ladies. This inspired me to want to create a film festival for movies made by women.  So, my purpose at the festival is to not only promote my film but to also promote the Lady Filmmakers Film Festival.  This site is currently under construction. I will update once we are up and running.

I still have to get my adapters and power vitamins, and my Naked Sushi t-shirts and gear picked up this week. I already have 2,500 post cards plus 2,000 biz cards to hand out.  Although I feel bad about the carbon footprint left behind with so many cards, it is the most cost effective, most bang- for -the- buck option for me at this time. Hopefully, they will get a lot of positive attention and drive people to go watch Naked Sushi!!!