People Like Me Don’t Go to Cannes

Last October, during a torrential downpour, I was out to lunch with some film folk somewhere in the southern portion of Palma, just by the sea. It was the middle of the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, my first film festival, and I felt as though people could actually see me floating. I was simply happy to be there—to soak up all the culture and information that people seemed to freely give once you were “in the door.” We were sitting in this nice restaurant—next to me a producer, across from me a director, and so on, all women with the exception of one husband—when the topic of conversation veered away from small talk and current festival happenings to the festival circuit as a whole. I, being mid-float, wasn’t necessarily paying attention. My eyes had glazed over, I’d disassociated a bit, but I snapped back to life when the topic shifted even further towards one festival in particular. 

“Do any of you think you’ll be attending Cannes next year?”

Everyone murmured their varied answers. Yes, no, depends on the project I’m currently workshopping, etc. I didn’t answer because I assumed they weren’t speaking to me. I was just the intern after all. And honestly, the personality hire intern, at that. But I was also the only non-white passing person at the table, so I doubly assumed that they couldn’t be talking to me. But eventually, they all fell silent and stared at me in anticipation. So I scoffed and said,

“Oh, no, I’m not so sure about that.”

In my head, Cannes is for The Beautiful People, celebrities and the like. Of course I’d had a vague idea that lots of different sorts of film people must attend the festival, but I surely wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t be. Despite critiquing films publicly for years on my own platform, and despite attending the gorgeous festival that was EMIFF, even as an intern. I didn’t feel like I was “Cannes material,” if there was such a thing. At the time, it certainly felt like there was. 

“Chloe, have you really lived in France all these years and have never attended the festival?”

Now, this really brought me off Cloud 9, because the producer who asked me that was absolutely right. I’d been living in Provence for years at that point, and it never occurred to me to try to attend the festival. I bet a lot of people think this way—I am not A Beautiful One, ergo, I do not go to film festivals. It’s that simple. Except, it’s really not. I would come to learn that belonging or not belonging, the mere question of it rests on the presupposition that you, as you are, may or may not be enough. And if all of this were happening to any of my girlfriends, I’d tell them they had to be crazy to abstain from putting themselves out there. So that day, in a random Spanish restaurant, I made a promise to try. And that promise is exactly how I wound up falling into step with Yes She Cannes.

With lots of time and research, I figured things out. Although I wasn’t accepted for official press accreditation within the festival, I’m so happy I forged ahead and decided to attend anyway with Yes She Cannes. After all, the history of the festival is rapt with unexpected changes, cancellations, and compromises; the first rendition of the festival was originally postponed because of Germany’s invasion of Poland, and then it was eventually cancelled altogether, only to return properly post-war. Knowing that the event I’m attending has experienced such significant turbulence changes my perspective on it a bit. I know I’m going somewhere with a history, an event that went through adversity, and is so integral to the foundation of the city that it became the background of the economy, the culture, and most importantly, the community. 

As the festival nears, my expectations continue to ebb and flow—simply put, no matter the adversarial or inspiring history of it all, this is not an ordinary thing that people experience everyday. At the same time, one can’t place too much significance on the grandeur of it all because it’s an opportunity to be surrounded by people who care about art. It may be optimistic of me, but I would like to believe that a creative can spot another creative a mile away—it’s a connection, an understanding. So I couldn’t be more thrilled by the thought of being in spaces where all kinds of creative people come together essentially for the purposes of celebrating the things they made or the things they were involved in, especially as a Black woman who daydreams in technicolor.

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ABOUT CHLOE

Chloe (Coco) Mays is a journalist, writer, and critic based in France. She is the founder of Coco’s Corner, a Substack and podcast focused on film, literature, and media, aiming to spotlight underrepresented voices through interviews and coverage.

 (IG: @cocoscorner13)

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Yes She Cannes is a global platform dedicated to elevating women in film through visibility, connection and access - creating meaningful opportunities at Cannes and beyond. Follow along: @yesshecannes