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(Continued from entry Cannes - Part I)

SUOMALAISET KÄNNISSÄ – FINNS IN CANNES

I rarely meet so many new Finns in just few days than during the week in Cannes. The Finns like to stay with each other, and approaching someone outside the small group is always if not hard, at least challenging.

This year they tried another method: they had put up this thing they called the ‘Suomi-Bar”, with a very clumsy tagline “Oh Lordi, it’s the Finns again…”, giving us the impression that somebody from somewhere in the world actually has this thought that we are somehow “crazy” folk, and “have done it” again. Which they don’t, which we are not, and which we have not done.

Suomi-Bar was a nice concept, though. There was screens which were showing some Finnish teasers, and posters of interesting productions – Iron Sky poster being one of them, and definitively most attractive. The eagle and the bird really works, and when framed with a nice, oldish frame with a hint of gold here and there, it’s really good looking poster indeed. Lordi poster and the whole artwork – the movie called Dark Floors – was a bit too dark and funny thing was that actually rarely anybody knew what Lordi was.

What I’ve always hated are the drinkkiliput, the drink cards. The other parties we were at, everything was free – like the Nordisk Film party or Danish Film Commission party, but Finns do it the Finnish way: drinkkiliput, expensive beer, expensive Koskenkorva… And later, at the Finnish party down at the beach, a reasonably-priced 16€ pint of beer really did work for people. All that anybody was talking about was the over-priced beer, and forgot the whole idea that there were some bands etc. Too bad, the party itself was nice, Hanna did her job well as did the Monsters, although I can’t say I was too enthusiastic about the Hurriganes film band Ganes. They played – as of course they were supposed to – badly, but the layer of Ramones-kind-of believeability was gone. They were, in the end, actors.

PÄIVÄKÄNNI – CANNES DURING THE DAYTIME

The days at Cannes were mostly focusing on meeting people, or dragging along with our producer Tero Kaukomaa to meet the people, and of course, to pitch the film. Our job wasn’t actually to find anybody to buy the film, but we are in the process of finding a reliable German co-producer. Another very important thing is to present the idea of Iron Sky to people, and then try to learn from the reactions to be actually able to sell the film when the time comes. We did meet some distributors, though, but we’ll see what’ll happen with that. Funding Iron Sky will be a huge process, right now it might seem almost impossible – at least the traditional way. But I don’t believe in ‘impossible’ – I just see ahead a very challenging adventure. Bring it on!

KÄNNISSÄ KÄNNISSÄ – HAVING A DRINK AT CANNES

Evenings where then always filled with different parties or dinners. We went to Nordisk Film party, the Suomi party I already mentioned, drank with the Danes and well, whatever you get, we went on and met the people. Most of the things seemed to happen at the terrace of this small pub called La Petit Majestic – just a normal bar, but for no reason, *everybody* was there. And by everybody I mean that people had blocked three roads, hundreds of people just swarming around in a huge mass. Every night! That was nice for the first evening, but the sixth evening I skipped. Really, one can socialize so much at one time, and I was feeling very unsocial during the whole week (no-good for the business, I know).

(Continued in Cannes - Part III)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 and is filed under English posts, General, Travels. You're welcome to comment below, or link to this post. The comments are not moderated, but behave or Santa will smack you with a shovel.