Not that I expect that to last long. Everyone’s got something to publicize here. In the taxi from the airport, I sat next to the cinematographer of “Go Tigers!”, a film in the documentary competition about a high school football team in Ohio. On the shuttle to the press office, I made small talk with the director of “The Natural History of the Chicken,” a doc I’d already planned to see. Late in the day, I met a New York actor who within minutes gave me his card, which was emblazoned with his head shot. He was here not with a film, however, but to volunteer for the festival; he slaves six to eight hours a day and in return gets access to every screening, he said.
Which is a lot more than I have, according to rumor. The badge I will wear around my neck says I get “admittance to press screenings.” But here’s the rub: Of the 50 or so movies screened a day, only a selection of them–maybe one-fifth–are designed for journalists and critics. The rest are “public screenings,” and at those, I will allegedly have to put my name on a waiting list and stand in the cold while the seats fill up.
My colleague John Horn, NEWSWEEK’s entertainment correspondent in Los Angeles, calls what I’m going through a “a rite of passage.” I don’t know what kind of badge he’s earned–this is his tenth year here–but I’m getting a good look at it when I run into him, which could be within the hour. The first screening begins at 8:30 a.m., after all. I’m leaving my room with a full schedule for the day and a rough agenda for the rest of the festival: movies I’d like to see, talent I’d like to interview, parties I’d like to…oops. Still no invites.
