Four weeks is not a very long time. But in four weeks, I have transformed into a new being, shedding my past life behind me. Sure, I look the same (except chubbier and darker), but I feel different. I think different. I can’t really put my finger on it, but deep down into the depths of my murky inner workings, an urge to change has stirred my soul to embrace the life I lead. As I move beyond one incredible experience, another incredible experience awaits me as I sit on a gray, leather chair inside Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Just two days before, I had arrived in this very airport returning from France, the location of my spiritual emancipation. The intensity of the study abroad program in which I participated has not only prepared me for my next endeavor in the entertainment industry, but it has instilled in me an unfamiliar sense of self-confidence. It’s quite a new feeling. I’m not quite comfortable with it yet, but I’m going to let it stay for a while. I’ll get to know self-confidence a bit better, and we’ll see how things go from there.
Being at the Cannes Film Festival is being in a dream. It isn’t necessarily a dreamy, perfect state where life somehow fit perfectly together in a neat, shiny box. Cannes is a surreal playground where popular beauties receive preferential treatment, bullies in tan-colored suits reign supreme and rare, unassuming, kind-hearted souls will make your day one million times better by handing you a shiny blue ticket. Cannes is chaos. Begging for tickets is the most degrading, humiliating process anyone can endure. As I would melt in the blistering French Riviera sun, I would often ask myself what is the point in all of this. Why am I standing for two hours in three-inch heels, holding up a sign in a language I do not speak nor understand, all for a chance to walk on the famed red carpet and watch a premiere screening of a film that has found its way to deserve a slot in the most famous lineup of cinematic ingenuity? Sure, when you didn’t get a ticket for a premiere, it sucked. Especially after your body has been stripped with the stares of curious bystanders strolling the Croissette. But what it really comes down to is this. I am here in this moment. I am here, at the Cannes Film Festival, one of the oldest and most prestigious film festivals in the world. I am here. My presence is recognized and acknowledged. And I’ve got access to a world premiere screening of a film in competition. I will most likely never have this opportunity again. The vast majority of the human population will never have this opportunity. I am here, and I’m going to make the most of it.
Of course begging for tickets was not the only thing I did in Cannes. I gained access to market screenings, but not without a little lying, cheating, stealing and killing. Okay, the only thing I did is lie. But that’s not the point. Interacting with the guards is like trying to convince them to give their firstborn child to you. And you would give them a kick in the ass in return. The aura of exclusivity surrounding the festival never misses a theater door, and the guards are well aware of their power to turn away lowly nobodies who only wanted to watch a movie. But after much convincing and cajoling (with a few fierce bats of eyelashes), I’m in. And that satisfaction of beating the system is a victory so sweet, sweeter than the gelato that I will devour after I watch my reward for my solid effort.
I lived sans roommate in a tiny apartment in the resort town of Juan-les-pins. Never before have I felt so independent being on my own. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t calling my parents, asking them to wire me more money. I was grocery shopping and cooking for myself. I was looking out for myself. I was okay with not talking to my loved ones back at home when I felt any tinge of loneliness. I was more than okay with being alone and having time to really think about why I was here and what I was getting out of it. Eventually any sense of loneliness or homesickness was a distant memory that never entered my mind throughout the entire trip. One moment in time, I was completely on my own, in a foreign land where I had no knowledge of its native language whatsoever. And I survived. Better yet, it was just a preview of a life that I want to live: living a nomadic life as a citizen of planet Earth. As much as I love America, my brief stay in the French Riviera only fuels my craving for global adventures, and now I want more. There is just too much to see, too many places to go, and I will never be able to see everything. But I’m 21 years old. I have the rest of my life to try.
Anyone who attends the festival for its entirety is going to develop a thicker skin. It’s inevitable. There is no way anyone can go through 3+ screenings per day, arguing and begging your way through each one without feeling absolutely burned out and jaded. But beyond the negative emerges the positive: you realize you are capable. You know the ropes of the festival, you know how it works. Suddenly, you realize your potential to pwn the challenges that may befall you (with movie guards, anyway). The world of cinema is deglamorized to a strip of burgundy fabric on a wooden plank erected only an hour before the premiere. Celebrities are human beings. Except for Robert Pattinson.
My name is Angela Yang, and I am a survivor of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival.
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