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Success at Clermont Ferrand
17 Feb 2000 :
Audrey O'Reilly reports, after a successful trip to the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival.

SUN 6th.

We have a 4.30 am start to get to the airport for our 6.40am companion flight to Paris. Such is the joy of cheap fares. My self and my producer, Barry Dignam, are off to Clermont Ferrand for the short film festival where our film ‘In Loving Memory’ is showing in competition. We’re a bit nervous as up to this we’ve only seen the film at our cast and crew screening which consisted of friends, cast and my mum, a discerning yet somewhat biased audience. In Clermont we’ve heard that the audiences will both boo and catcall if they don’t like your film. However the festival has offered eight nights accommodation, food vouchers and a contribution towards travel expenses so I will take my chances. After 12 hours of planes, trains and buses we finally arrive up at the Maison des Congres, the hub of the festival, to register. Barry abandons his usual producing mode, leaving me to try and communicate using the most basic of leaving cert French. Somehow we get by and collect our accreditations and bags full of glossy programs, market catalogs and most importantly, passes to the Jamesons lounge and directors bar.

MON 7th

The festival has laid on a shuttle bus between the hotels and the Maison des Congres. We go straight to the Maison to check our pigeon holes. The festival provides a pigeon hole to each person registered at the festival and this kind of becomes the marker of one’s popularity through out the week. Luckily today I’m lulled into a false sense of security as there are three invites from people asking me to submit 'In Loving Memory' to their festivals as well as a request to do an interview with Brazilian TV. First however we have to go to a market screening where Barry’s ‘Dream Kitchen’ is showing. ‘Forefront’ distributors,who handle Barry’s ‘Dream Kitchen’ and my ‘Ward Zone’ are showing a selection of their films. Despite it being 10.30am they have managed to round up a good crowd of buyers. However they are not a laughing audience, and Barry cringes through the entire 8 minutes of his film....luckily however, they are a money audience and Meagan and Harold manage to get Barry a number of sales. I then head off to do my Brazilian T.V. interview with Eduardo. I had really better think of a better pitch for my film then ‘era it’s about this old one, dead bodies and funerals’. Just as we finish, one of the festival selectors wanders by, sees the video box lying on the table. Even with my minimum French I can understand when he tells Eduardo that he doesn’t like the film. Fair play to him, he doesn't appear a bit embarrassed when Eduardo introduces me as the director, saying ‘Yes, I did not like it, still, you are here aren’t you!’. I scuttle over to the director’s bar to settle my nerves, and myself and Barry sit drinking free champagne surrounded be a sea of French speakers. We feel a bit lost and luckily Forefront take pity on us and take us for dinner. We get a depressingly early night.

TUES 8th

I can see my pigeon hole from the entrance of the registration room and it is empty except for the same load of bumff put in every box. Large rain forests have fallen for Clermont Ferrand. Over in the huge market area, countries from Britain to Mexico have set up stands advertising their films, using such hooks as free wine and tequila (at Amy) to try and lure over the buyers. Instead they are attracting a multitude of thirsty directors. It’s here we finally meet some other English speakers. Meanwhile the buyers are hidden away behind the scenes watching high stacks of videos. God help anyone not in competition, the brick-thick market catalog lists up to 2000 shorts films, and as the week goes on, we begin to think that directors and producers are specifically not invited to various parties etc. to give buyers a chance to breathe and drink in peace. Myself and Barry attempt to go to a screening but not realizing one can get headphones offering simultaneous translation (albeit in a monotone American voice) we can’t understand a thing and hop out to the Jameson’s bar to for a bit of Dutch courage before our screening. It’s on at 10.15 and in one of the smaller auditorium off the main drag so we figure there won’t be too many people there.

It’s packed !!! About the same size as Savoy 1 it’s full to capacity. I feel completely ill. It’s on first and when the music starts up I think I’m going to faint. However as it goes on nobody boos or cat calls and when it ends it gets a really warm clap. I sit back and enjoy the rest of the program, especially Johna Kaplan ‘Stalker Guilt Syndrome’ and Dagur Kari Petursson’s very long very good ‘Lost Weekend’. Myself, Barry and Derry O'Brien then proceed to get drunk in the Bar Gergovia. I get into an argument with some French bloke when I think he is trying to steal Barry’s beer. He tells me that he wants to kill me, wants to kill himself and anybody who happens to be around...I let him have the beer..turns out it was his anyway.

WED 9th

We’re establishing a pattern. Get up, go to Maison du Congres, check empty pigeon holes form across the room, go to some films, food, Jamesons Lounge, Director’s Bar, food. The Jamesons bar in particular, over looking the market, gives us the opportunity to watch business going on, specifically Derry O'Brien pursuing buyers clutching his box full of tapes. Go Derry! Thankfully we’ve made some English speaking friends, Jonah, who directed ‘Stalker Guilt Syndrome, and Mike and Amy, from L.A., here with their hilarious puppet & live action X-files spoof ‘Herd’. That night we manage to gate crash a big dinner being given by Atom Films. When we realize it’s on their tab and that they get a 70% cut of the sales they make, the drink flows long and hard into the night. Conveniently Kodak are holding their party downstairs in the same venue, and with beer induced bravado we manage to gate crash that too. It only takes us two hours to get a taxi afterwards.

THURS 10th

I have a screening at 10am, I wake at 9.30am, Barry is not to be roused. I just make the shuttle into town and get the driver to drop me to the Amphi Gergovia. People are queuing around the block waiting to get in! They take their short films EXTREMELY seriously here at Clermont. Again it is a huge theater and full to capacity. Reeking of cigarette smoke and drink I squeeze in between two elegant French women. The film goes down well, the two women beside me clap vigorously and I see one of them wiping their eyes. Tears! SCORE!!! Not even an empty pigeon hole can spoil the moment. Anyway tonight is the big night, the main screening in the Cocteau cinema at 8pm, take Cork Opera house, multiply it by three and stuff it with serious filmophiles and you have the general idea. There are rows and rows of people waiting to get in. We are introduced before hand and as usual mine is the opener, I keep turning around and find it hard to take in that there is over 2500 people watching our film..and no booing. Myself and Barry keep grinning at each other, and I’m delighted to note Amy is having to wipe her nose on her sleeve. They clap long and hard, and when the clapping ends someone up the back keeps clapping so they all start up again, they stop and the person keeps clapping (I’m beginning to think my mother flew over on the sly) so they clap again and people are turning around grinning at us...I can’t help but grin back. Feck sales, feck prizes, this is what it’s all about. We all go and get drunk again.

FRI 11th

Thank God. At last there’s a note in my pigeon hole, some body thanking me for ‘a few minutes of emotion’ . There is also a couple more festival invites. Derry has also gotten about five sales so far. He has also heard a rumor that ‘In Loving Memory’ (or ‘Souvenir Eternel’) might be up for some award. Okay I know we had drunken conversations about prizes not being important, but suddenly I want that little ‘Vercingetroix’ statue so much I can taste the metal. However I put it from my mind and go to the ‘questions and answer session’ which all the directors have to do after their Cocteau screening. It’s surprisingly crowded and for some reason there is a plethora of photographers milling around taking our photographs. Who would ever want to look at these. I’m asked phenomenally long questions in French which when translated are about three words long, nothing too hard thanks be to God, we’re not up to much filmic analysis after last night.

SAT 12th

There’s a letter in my pigeon hole, a letter from the festival. Suddenly I get goose bumps, Barry spots me opening it up and rushes over. It says ‘Dear Anne (ah well) we have good news for you! please meet us at room three.’ Myself and Barry rush to room three, there Christian Ginot, the festival coordinator tells us that we have won an award, the Prix du Public, ie the international audience award. We are THRILLED. Even Christian seems genuinely happy about it, saying that with so many funny and stylish films,he wasn’t sure that a melancholy film like this could still win the audience prize. Myself and Barry go outside to sit down and try and take it in. Ever the producer, he looks up the award...yes....it’s a money one, BRILLIANT! !! I do an interview for Canal Plus and have my photograph taken, I can’t stop grinning. At that award ceremony, the guy who earlier in the week threatened to kill me shows us to our seats, we can’t understand a word of the ceremony ( again forgetting to pick up headphones) but we understand enough to know when we are being called. I haven’t much French, but I have enough to be able to say ‘Merci, Merci Beaucoup Clermont Ferrand’

POST SCRIPT

MON. 14th

Back in the real world I’m bored, champagne ceremonies and awards seem every far away. The phone suddenly rings, it’s the selector who told me he didn’t like my film...he has to obtain a copy of all the winning films and tour with them! I find I’m grinning again!.

- Audrey O'Reilly



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