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On January 26th, director Tim Burton was announced as the President of the Jury for the 63rd Festival de Cannes in 2010.  He will be just one of hundreds of thousands of film industry professionals and cinema fans who will flock to the beautiful French Riviera city to take part in the festival from May 12th to the 23rd.

If you’re planning to attend, and you don’t yet have all of your accommodation and travel sorted out, you’d better either be stinking rich or very resourceful.  As it is, most events are entirely restricted from the public, with passes only provided for members of the film industry and the press.

For more on limited public events and the authoritative guide to attending the Cannes Film Festival, check out Cannes - A Festival Virgin’s Guide.  Just for fun, I used their hotel finder to see what it would cost to check in on the 1tth and out on the 24th.

Turns out my imaginary trip to Cannes would cost me a minimum of 220€ a night, which is slightly outside of my real-life budget, so I’ll have to be content to watch the action from afar.

Last week, the official poster was revealed on the festival’s website, featuring a luminous (buh-dum-ch!) Juliette Binoche, magic paint brush in hand and coy smile on lips.

The 2009 festival was infamously interrupted by workers’ strikes (the french love nothing more than their manifestations and grèves); screenings had to be canceled when protesting electric workers shut off power.  A certain amount of scandal also arose when a wheelchair-bound director, pass in hand, was not permitted to enter the red carpet area.

The official list of films for the 2010 festival will be revealed on April 15th, and in the meantime, I will keep you posted with more amusing and scandalous stories from past festivals, practical advice for visiting Cannes, and what to say if you do happen to run into Juliette Binoche and want to pay her a compliment (a bad example, I know, as she speaks perfect English).

Vocabulaire	Vocabulary
Festival de Cannes Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	Cannes Film Festival
une manifestation Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	a demonstration/protest
(faire) la grève Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	(to) strike