■ As I board my plane to unexplored anthropological territory – there aren’t enough documentaries on TV on the French – I’m experiencing simultaneous feelings of trepidation, anticipation andexhilaration. But what does all this mean to me? Cannes is not only the oldest film festival in the world, having started in 1939, but is, and has been for quite some time, the most famous. I remember Clint Eastwood saying, “There’s nothing else quite like it” and I can’t wait. This is where Brigitte Bardot strutted around in that famous, flowery two-piece bikini on the Croisette in 1953, and where Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1955, and where they got married the following year, continuing the tradition started by Rita Hayworth in 1949, when she married Aly Khan, the flamboyant son of The Aga Khan. I think back to Madonna’s outrageous appearance in her conical bra in 1991, and Coppola, Polanski, Almodovar and the Coen Brothers walking up to receive their Palme d’Ors, and slowly the magnitude of this grand festival and the significance of the hallowed turf I’ll be walking on sinks in.

<I>Source: Times of India</I>