Cannes is a Film Festival. Allegedly. What it actually is is a theme park for the world’s most beautiful people. It’s a picturesque little town on the French Riviera to which, once a year, thousands of people wearing white linen trousers will descend upon to mingle with the rich and famous. They will party. They will gossip. They will eat and drink and be merry. They will hang around outside sprawling hotels with their iPhone cameras ready. Others will be on constant look out for Leonardo DiCaprio. In the middle of all this maybe they’ll see a film. Whatever.
It’s the other side of Cannes; the debauchery of Cannes, that photographer Francesc Planes is interested in. A peek behind the curtain at the world’s most glorious cinematic celebration. Come on, Venice? That’s for starfuckers. The Oscars? The BAFTAS? Nobody parties in LA, and everyone in London smokes Lost Marys now, even the disgraced TV hosts. For chic, real chic, old world glamour chic, you need Cannes – that Francesc focuses his laser sharp eye on in these photographs. The kind of laser sharp eye you wish you had at the stage of the evening at which many of these photos were taken.
Shot on 35mm, the images are a sort of gonzo look at the inner workings of the fabled week. “I wanted to enjoy the festival and the city as much as I could, so I wasn’t focused that much on equipment,” Francesc says. “I just lived the moment and had my camera almost all the time of the festival in my pocket, so every chance I got I took it out and took some quick pictures without thinking too much, by instinct.”
And instinct works! Instinct got Francesc into parties, including the party this year (The Idol after party) and even to meet, yes, Leonardo DiCaprio. The hotel iPhone fans would have been furiously jealous. This is a Met Gala after party vibe.
At an event so heavily curated and excessively photographed, it’s no mean feat to create images that recalibrate your perspective on it. But that’s what Francesc’s work does. “Everyone’s there to be photographed, they like it, they want to be shown to the world,” he says. So now we are showing them to the world.
Credits
All imagery courtesy of Francesc Planes