Red carpet ready

Judgement day.  I did a lot of mopping up emails and phone calls and trying to wrangle the shift of everything from Euston to Element.  We’d been exhorted to have a big breakfast as we weren’t getting lunch until 3pm.  So we texted each other ‘big breakfast’ all morning.  Marie had gone back to Paris for a work thing but also to get a new outfit for tonight and sent us pictures of herself in a face mask on the train on the way back. 

Make up and hair turned up at 1.30 and we gathered in the lobby and walked to the most bizarre thing we’ve done at the festival, pictured above, we had our press conference but during a lunch cooked by a chef who had been a finalist in Top Chef.  Everything was hyper local so the sugar was beet sugar, the beers were Flemish and so was the food.  Quite creamy and heavy but in gastro cooking style.  They had allowed some wine in from the Loire and from Belgium.  So the only video clip I have seen is indeed of us eating - very odd decision!  Then we walked back to the hotel in the rain under big SM umbrellas, trying not to let out hair get wet.  We changed again for the red carpet. 

We were driven with police escort (you could feel the locals going who are those idiots…) to a bar as a holding pen for the red carpet.  Extra is us all lined up on the sofa.  Then driven up there and on.  We were the first jury on stage and had agonised about what to say and I think said too little.  I managed to say something about the prize I was giving out, for the best director for our Iranian drama.  

Then there was a big cocktail party back at the CCI and I connected with the various winners, including Luco Marinelli who won for Mussolini from the main jury.  We gave our best actor award to Matthew Gurney, a deaf actor from a new BBC show called Reunion.  It is a remarkable, intense presence on the screen and signed a moving speech spoken by his interpreter.  The best series and best actress went to the superb Celeste but only the producer was there. 

I went back to the hotel around midnight, deciding not to go to the after party this time.  End of an amazing week.