The Nines at Cannes
In case you’re wandering La Croisette, wondering where all the interlocking three-part dramas with unexpected science-fiction elements are, you might want to check out The Nines, which has three market screenings scheduled this week:
- Wednesday, May 16th at 12:00pm – Palais K (Market)
- Friday, May 18th at 8:00pm – Palais K (Market)
- Monday, May 21st at 11:00am – The Deauville / Majestic Hotel (Market)
We’re not in competition — these screenings are just to give distributors in, say, Bulgaria, a chance to see the movie. I’m not there, 1 so I have no particular insight on how to muscle one’s way into these screenings, except that persistence almost always pays off.
This is also a unique opportunity to see the movie with its sparkling new French subtitles:
- MARGARET
- Je suis à ça de t’avoir Christine Walsh pour Parade Magazine.
- GARY
- Je déteste Parade Magazine.
- MARGARET
- Tout le monde déteste. Le public de “Crime Lab” adore leur Marilyn Vos Savant. Fais-nous un petit acte de contrition, et peut-être qu’on tuera pas ton personnage. Va pas me faire un pétage de plomb…
- GARY
- Je suis pas fou.
- MARGARET
- Justement. Justement!
- A strange sentence: “I’m not there.” Obviously, I could never be “there,” since I am always “here.” It feels like the kind of contradiction that would have been pointed out to Alice in one of her adventures. ↩
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May 15th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Have a great time not being at Cannes. Incidentally, do you have any influence over the subtitles (other than writing the original English, of course)? For example, if they’re having a hard job translating a slang term, do they call you or just go with their gut?
May 15th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Did you get Tom Stoppard to do the translation?
May 15th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Will you post clips of your film on this site, so we can check it out?
May 15th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
The “Here and There” bit immediately reminded me of a cute old Sesame Street bit where a monster wanted to be “there”, but whenever he got there he inexplicably was “here” again. Sorry, that has nothing to do with The Nine, but I had to think of that :)
May 16th, 2007 at 2:36 am
I wish The Nines was selected in some so-called “parallel competition” (Director’s fortnight, Un certain regard…) for market screenings rarely gather a crowd of movie enthusiasts. As for the French subtitles they are ok yet they sound a bit too faithful to the original lines.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:05 am
Hi John, Just discovered your site. REALLY looking forward to seeing your film. It looks brilliant. Good Luck! Cheers.
May 16th, 2007 at 6:00 am
If I were in Cannes, I’d be stalking Gael Garcia Bernal– but I’d make sure to make time for The Nines with subtitles!
May 16th, 2007 at 6:59 am
John, I hope that is not the real translation that will appear on the print of your film at Cannes. I’ve read Margaret’s first line several times over and I still can’t figure out what she’s trying to say. And the rest of it, well, I can understand it, but it’s certainly not correct.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
You can never be “there” from your perspective, but you can be “there” from someone else’s perspective.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Never trust a drunk translator. Never. The second half is ok, but the first one… As viktor said, the first one is probably too faithful, but also awfully wrong. Being french, trust me, the first half is weirder than a sober Mad Hatter. Even the “contrition” stuff is too litteral, sounds fake and unnatural.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
As I read this, I thought your footnote would point out that “there” didn’t refer to Bulgaria, which was the last location referenced.
Sort of like, in my sentence above, “this” doesn’t refer to the sentence I wrote.
Ah, fun with pronouns.
RED
May 17th, 2007 at 1:16 am
Hi John,
First time commenting in your blog which I discovered very recently. I hope you enjoy your Cannes experience. I actually had a question or two to ask you. I’m currently (well until the end of June) a student at French film school. I want to write scripts in English (not my native language, obviously). When did you know that writing scripts was your call? Also, how did you manage to survive before you started living off of your passion? That last one is really bugging me.
Thank you and keep up the great work.
May 17th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Believe it or not, I am writing this from the German Film Pavilion at Cannes. (Why the German pavilion? Because they have free Internet access. Apologies in advance for any weird typos–the keys on this keyboard seem to be arranged for German speakers rather than English speakers.) I was looking through the schedule for tomorrow and I saw The Nines, so I thought I’d stop by johnaugust.com and see if you had any tips for getting into a screening. Question asked, question answered.
For any other John August fans at Cannes (or ‘John August Fannes’ for short), in my experience, you can usually show up at a market screening with a regular festival badge and if there’s a free seat, they’ll let you have it Obviously they#d rather have every seat filled with distributors and the like, but they’re happy to have you act as a seat filler if there are empty places.
This assumes you have a festival badge, of course. If not, there’s no way you can even get into the Palais, let alone the screening room. You might have a shot for the screening at the Majestic, although I think even there itäs hard to get in without a badge.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Running off of what Jacob said, even if you have a cinephile badge, you can’t get into the Palais. Or at least that’s what they say. Persistence is key–that and back/side doors. You’ll never get in the front doors with a cinephile badge. Also, once you get in, walk like you know where you’re going, act like you’re more important than anyone around you, and turn your badge around so you’re harder to catch.
Also, your odds of being let in by a door guard greatly increase if you are (1) dressed nicely and/or (2) a female.
Good luck, Fannes.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I was checking out the movie screening for the Seattle International Film Festival and looked for The Nines, although I figured you would have mentioned it to us had it screened there, but was hopeful anyway–no luck. Any chance your film will be screened at other American festivals?
May 21st, 2007 at 11:03 am
Alas, I wasn’t able to wheedle my way into THE NINES on Friday night. And this morning; rather than face disappointment again, I went to a screening I knew I could get into–LAMMA HIKYIT MAYAM,a Lebanese film screening at Tout le Cinema du Monde. Also, I figured I’d be able to see THE NINES back in London at some point, whereas this was my only shot at LAMMA HIKYIT MARYAM.
When is THE NINES coming to London; by the way?
May 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Optimum has The Nines for the UK. It will come out sometime after the US, so late fall or early winter, perhaps.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Regarding the subtitles, remember that they’re designed to be seen with picture. The “à ça” refers to holding up two fingers to indicate “thisclose.” In a script, you’d probably put them in italics.
Random trivia: the French (not French Canadian) translator also did Buffy and Star Trek, so the movie is up her alley.