"From time to time here in Cannes, you will fall into conversation with a veteran of film festivals past, hardened by 20 or 30 May fortnights of Bandol and foie gras, black-tie screenings and late-night yacht parties, who will conjure memories of bygone glory and outrage -- of Rosetta in 1999, of The Tin Drum and Apocalypse Now in 1979, or even of the storied Cannes of 1968, when a group of French directors held down the curtain of the old Palais des Festivals at the start of a screening and brought the whole thing to a grinding halt. Those of us who missed out on those heady times will return from this year's festival to burnish and propagate a legend of our own. In some future year, lingering over a midnight dinner as the well-dressed crowds rush by, we will thoughtfully swirl the dregs in our wine glasses and remember 2003, the year of Brown Bunny and Les Côtelettes, the year that the most talked-about films were the ones in other festivals, the year that every critic became an incarnation of the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, pronouncing the 56th edition of Cannes the worst festival ever." -- A. O. Scott, New York Times, June 1, 2003.

The 56th Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 25 May 2003. The poster is an original illustration by Jenny Holzer. The festival opened with Fanfan la Tulipe, directed by Gérard Krawczyk and closed with Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin, directed by Richard Schickel. Actress Monica Bellucci was the mistress of ceremonies. French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer Patrice Chéreau was the President of the Jury, which included Meg Ryan, Karin Viard, Erri De Luca, Jean Rochefort, Steven Soderbergh, Danis Tanović and Jiang Wen, and the Palme d'Or went to the American film Elephant by Gus Van Sant, based on the Columbine High School massacre.

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that one film in competition, The Brown Bunny, was the worst film in the history of Cannes, and director/star Vincent Gallo retorted by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader." Paraphrasing Winston Churchill, Ebert responded with, "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny." Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert's colon, cursing the critic with cancer. In response, Ebert quipped that watching a video of his colonoscopy had been more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny.

BachelorMan didn't play at the festival. It wasn't finished in time to submit (not that it would have qualified with that Brown Bunny competition -- although the filmmakers for both movies met when Newmark/Echelon Entertainment Group picked up the North American distribution rights to both films), but BachelorMan was promoted at Cannes in 2003 by Showcase Entertainment, and they sold the film in several foreign markets -- six years after Noble House tried acquire financing there with Charles Wessler.

And who knows -- in a few more years, we might edit in about ten minutes of graphic, gratuitous oral sex footage with an acclaimed actress like Brown Bunny did, and we could still get in!!!

NOBLE HOUSE CANNES FLIER (1997)

SHOWCASE CANNES FLIER (2003)

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