First Day= A+

            First full day of Cannes. And what a day it was….Here it goes. Best. Day. Ever. A++ (Clearly life here just gets better everyday… I don’t know how much better it can get from here)

We went to bed at 2:30 AM and woke up at 6:30 AM to get to the main theater to beg for tickets to the 8:30 AM first screening of Rust and Bone, a competition French film starring Marion Cotilliard. We walked along the water on the now-familiar walk to the center of the city and it was basically empty- such an incredible experience (made significantly better by the double cappuccino I had in one hand and the chocolate croissant in the other- gotta love the French). I don’t regret getting little to zero sleep for one second. Especially because as we were standing outside the theater looking for tickets, some VERY nice dude came up to me and handed me three tickets. It was so perfect and so lucky. Casually got to walk the red carpet AGAIN, in broad daylight, to get into the Lumiere. I could not have been happier. Sadly, no paps were there but I’ll survive.

I do not have better things to say about this film, it was raw, emotionally charged, and overall incredible. Normally, foreign language films aren’t really my thing, but Cotilliard’s performance was flawless and the subtitles were more than enough to capture and hold my attention. I was invested in every second of the film, which is about a whale trainer named Stephanie (Cotilliard) who loses her legs in a freak accident and finds love with Ali (French actor Matthias Schoenaerts), a tough boxer/thug who’s life is falling apart after moving in with his sister after taking his 5-year old son away from his drug lord mother (very brief description- but see it!!!!). After the movie, we all raved about it for a few minutes and then quickly moved on to the next. Our larger group split up and Hayley, Rawson, our other friend Arthur, and I, decided to grab a quick lunch at a cute outdoor café. By chance, we happened to be reading through the daily edition of Variety passed out everyday during the festival (for free, ugh, wish America was like this) and noticed a bunch of ads for great looking films with all star casts that weren’t on the Cannes roster, but had a suite number in one of the hotels written on the bottom. We ventured over the hotel and ended up talking to a bunch of film execs casually in their suite-turned-office for almost half an hour! It was so cool!

Already on a high, Hayley and I continued on our day’s amazing journey by venturing over to the theater where the Woody Allen documentary was playing. We tanned on the steps of the theater waiting to get inside (yet another reason to love France). We were one of the first to enter and took our seats dead center in the plush red velvety chairs that our bodies basically melted into. We were in for such a surprise: the director of the film, Robert Weide, was there to watch the film and spoke to the audience before the screening!!! He delivered such a great speech (in English thankfully) and Hayley and I felt SO lucky! The documentary was great!!! We stuck around after the show and got to speak to Weide as well. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip! We had dinner and gelato after that and tried to get into a third movie to no avail (some theaters are just too small L) so we came back to the dorms to shower and change for the night. Hayley and I managed to score two passes to the Rust and Bone after party tonight after its big premiere and are getting ready to go as I type this. Cannot wait!!!! Hopefully I will have some great celebrity schmoozing stories and red carpet adventure momentos to share tomorrow! Bonne soiree!