Reiki at the Cannes Film Festival 2009

Back from prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Cannes Baby! prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /Needless to say, we had a blast at the 62th edition of the Film Festival!

Check out some of the highlights below!

Now, in case you missed it,  we went to Cannes to promote our feature film ‘Reiki The Movie’, that was screening on the 19th of May at the Palais F in Cannes.Cannes to promote our feature film ‘Reiki The Movie’, that was screening on the 19th of May at the Palais F in Cannes.

We arrived on Friday the 15th at 1300.  First things first: getting my badge!!!

Then, only 30 minutes after arriving, I had a meeting at the festival, with an interested distributor from Cambodia.

But, having to rush paid off, because I sealed the deal! Meaning Reiki will have theatrical, DVD and online distribution in Cambodia! Great way to start Cannes ey…

To celebrate, we went to have a drink at the Wallon Pavilion, where we were welcomed with open arms, enthusiasm about Reiki, lots of beer and delish chocolate.

The next day, our crew: Davide, Didier, Steven, Turid and Jolien hit the festival, rockin’ the fucktastic Reiki promotional shirts.

On the front, the shirts said "I'm fucking Pedro Chaves". The back showed the logo of Reiki. It took a lot of convincing, ass kissing, moelleux, beers and cocktails to get them to wear those shirts, but distributors, producers and Cannes folks alike loved them and we heard the phrase “one of the best promo’s I’ve seen in years” more than a few times . Eventually, even people outside our crew (like some AmPav employees) started wearing them’

And of course,  I had to rock it myself….

The Village International was, as every year, great. Spent some lovely time there, lots of it at the AmPav, where Turid, Davide and me had some great lunches.

Then came D-day: the day of the screening!!! By this time, Koen had joined our crew. Two hours before the screening we decided to send out some more emails to distributors. So we got the Marché book out, installed ourselves at the Portuguese Pavilion (where the love and support for Reiki was overwhelming) and started sending the (to Davide’s annoyance ;-), ever-growing amount of) emails.

After that, it was of to the screening.

And we arrived! Palais F!

Some last minute testing of the footage and welcoming everyone….

We had lots of positive feedback which resulted in getting invited to a few other festivals (like Razor Reel and Lyon) and having some new people doing a shit load of promotion for Reiki and creating a buzz that really helped us out!  Our love goes out to the French for their enthusiasm about Reiki!

After the screening we went to a VIP party at the Carlton Beach, where we had champagne, delish food and met with some actors and the vice-president of CBS.

Then came the day of our live interview for ARTE and RTBF. I’ll post it on youtube, but in case you can’t wait to see us kickin’ it at the pier of the ‘Majestic Barrière’, you can check it online at  www.rtbf.be

And well, you can’t do Cannes without doing the red carpet at least a few times…

Even managed to get a ticket to the closing ceremony!!!

After getting Reiki into some more festivals and securing theatrical and DVD distribution for some other countries, we figured we deserved some time to chill.  

So, a fucktastic Cannes, packed with lots of work, great ideas, productive meetings, cool people, great places, lovely parties, fantastic movies and just one regret: I didn’t make it to the screening of ‘20th Century Boys Chapter 2’

Don’t neglect the balls

Pedro