Director of Programming James McNally is attending this year’s Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival from January 31st to February 8th
Overall, a bust. But hoping things are better today.
I flew overnight to Paris and wasn’t able to sleep at all. I arrived about 7:30am and had about two hours before my connecting flight. That gave me time to swap out my phone’s SIM card for one I’d bought online from LeFrenchMobile and that turned out to be the easiest thing I accomplished all day.
I got into Clermont-Ferrand about 11:00am and was at my AirBnB before noon. I knew that there was someone here cleaning and I couldn’t really get full access until 2pm or so but I wanted to drop off my heavy suitcase. The apartment I’m staying at is enormous and comes with a friendly cat, but so far I’ve had intermittent wifi problems (it’s working okay right now), and struggles to warm the place up. Maybe I just can’t figure out the thermostat. As a result I slept in a full set of clothes last night. Right now the temperature inside the apartment is hovering around 16°C which feels frigid to me.
My first shower lasted about 2 minutes as well. First the hot water gave out quickly and then the shower wouldn’t drain, threatening to flood the bathroom floor. Hoping for better luck this morning.
To make things worse, I’d made arrangements to meet up with Dustin Kaspar from the Seattle International Film Festival. Both of us were dog tired and after both of us napped in the afternoon, we were going to meet up for dinner. I’d obtained a ticket for the first screening of the festival at 8pm but left it in my room when going to meet Dustin since he didn’t think he’d be going and I was happy to chat over a long meal. We were going to meet in front of the Maison de la Culture at 6pm but I didn’t get his message until 6:10 and arrived about 6:30. I hung around waiting for another email letting me know where he and a filmmaker friend had gone and watched everyone arriving for the screening. By 7:45pm I was regretting leaving my ticket behind since now I couldn’t get in even if I wanted to.
I even saw illustrator Chris Buzelli and his wife taking pictures in front of the Maison de la Culture (his poster for this year’s festival is plastered everywhere in C-F, but especially on the festival venues). But I was feeling too sorry for myself to approach them.
By 7:55pm I’d decided that Day 1 wasn’t off to a very good start and headed back to my room. Luckily I’d bought some groceries earlier in the day and had a little picnic in front of my computer. But with the wi-fi out, I was reduced to writing up my day and checking for emails on my phone. I headed to bed (fully clothed) by around 10pm.
So yeah, Day 1 kind of sucked. No films, no meetings, no heat, no fun.
P.S. Juror Denis Côté was on my flight from Paris to C-F. He must be a busy guy, because he has a film premiering in Berlin in a week.