A tale of two film festivals, in star gazing, hot restos, and party It spots.

This festival, Laura deCarufel and Jennifer Lee, the co-editors of
Hardly magazine
, had the high honour of reporting from TIFF’s coolest films, parties, and events. Stay tuned for our wrap-up coverage this week, including our favourite moments from the festival! This spring and fall, Jenn and I covered two very different film festivals. Cannes was a
très surreal experience—the festival took over the town, with men in tuxedos and women in ballgowns lined up along the Croisette looking for stars, and hoping for tickets (Typical homemade sign: "Wall Street 2!!! S’il vous plait?") We took the train in every morning from Vallauris, where we had rented an apartment, and joined the crush of journalists waiting in line for films and press conferences. We saw some great movies (
Blue Valentine and
Heartbeats by Quebec wunderkind Xavier Dolan), and some terrible ones (Woody Allen’s
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.) We saw stars on the red carpet, at the nightly parties, and on the street (Naomi Watts, the incredible Mathieu Amalric). We stayed out until 5, then watched George Clooney’s Nespresso commercials while eating steak and scrambled eggs as the sun came up. To say we had the time of our lives is to understate.
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