Serbian Cocktail Hour?

Saturday, May 14

This morning was a class screening of Paul Cox's latest, semi-autobiographical film "Force of Destiny." We saw the movie in a smaller, more intimate theater and quite frankly took up a large portion of the audience.

The film focuses on Cox's own liver transplant and portrays to the viewers a sense of hope. During his waiting for a liver, Cox (played by David Wenham) meets and falls in love with Maya (played by Shahana Goswami.

After the screening, Goswami talked with us a little bit about the process of filming, time frames, and Cox himself. She took criticism, praise, and ultimately laughed that the set was a lot of fun despite the serious topics.

A group of us left that to get a cup of Nespresso (potentially the best thing that has happened to me is the fact that Nespresso is free at all times at Cannes) and then to find a little bit of lunch before seeing "The Dancer" screening.

At the American Pavilion, you really never know what you will find. For starters, they have tricked you into thinking the snacks at the front of the pavilion are edible. I have decided they are not. This environmentally conscious (go Earth!) company that sells coffee, power bars, and vitamin supplements, is being represented and while I do appreciate what they are doing, I don't understand why they cut off a wedge of butter and stuck it in a blender with my coffee.

Is the theme of the AmPav this year Paula Dean? Maybe.

After a quick snack, we headed into Stephanie Di Giusto's feature film debut "The Dancer" in one of the main theaters. WOW. What a film. Chronicling the life of turn of the century dancer Loie Fueller, Di Giusto churns out a true masterpiece.

The dance scene are stunning, the acting superb, and the shots are impeccable. I cannot recommend this film enough. If you care about beautiful cinema or even have heart, you need to see this. It will change you.

In a turn of events, we ended up at the S.E.E. (South East Europe) cocktail party where we met a production team of a short German film.

We headed home to change clothes and then back on a train to Cannes to sit in the hotel lobby of the Majestic.

For everyone wondering: beer is 20 euro a bottle. Unbelievable. But we did see some really good plastic surgery and botox work.

We met a guy who not only told me that his company has hangover days (you can miss 2 days a year if you're hungover) but also that Trina Turk dresses him. He has shorts that match a dress in my closet and we are planning on wearing them together to the American Pavilion.

We went to the Little Majestic which is a street corner area that has relatively affordable drinks and lots of networking opportunities. Mainly we huddled up and the weather turned chilly.

In case I was forgetting that here in Cannes I am an actual plebeian, we got rejected from a night club. So then we danced at a "Pasta Club" which had no dancing except for us, the whitest group of college kids of all time.

I'm 27% sure the DJ was a descendant of Sylvester Stallone and did absolutely nothing but strum a few chords to his iTunes account. Pretty impressive, am I right?

More later!