One night, I not only got the chance to attend the red carpet premiere of my favorite screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman's film, but I was only five seats away from him! After the film, I got the amazing opportunity to attend the after-party. These things happen at Cannes! There, I met privately, conversed, and connected with Kaufman, which was so beyond belief for me that it nearly brought me to tears. At the party I also met and enjoyed the presence of Brad Pitt, Catherine Keener, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams, and Sean Penn. It was a completely unforgettable experience, as was the rest of the trip!

The Mini Movie Channel saw one of my films in the Short Film Corner and showed an interest in buying. I showed them a few of my other films and they wanted those too. Ended up selling a few films at 50 euro per minute of the movie.

I saw close to twenty films, including twelve in competition, worked an internship, went to industry parties, attended a red carpet gala, traded over a hundred business cards, and tried to make the most of every opportunity. In the end, what I am most grateful for was the chance to meet the other participants in the program. The contacts I feel will be most valuable are the other participants that I lived and partied with for two weeks. The Creative Minds participants are some of the most talented, intelligent, and passionate people I've ever met, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have meet them!

Through my internship with AMC TV, I hung out with Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) at the screening of his new film Third Wave. While picking up an EPK, at The Weinstein Company’s office, for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona I got an opportunity to meet “the” Harvey Weinstein.

Cannes is a goldmine for Indie filmmakers. I secured distribution for a short I already had in the can and landed an investor for a pet project I’ve been trying to do for years!

I walked the red carpet, got a mentor, secured an internship and met Kerry Washington. And that was Day 1 of 15!

The day after getting the fundraising packet, I went through and created a plan based on the tools Creative Minds gave me. I made a modified version of the "I'm going to Cannes" script, making sure to note the exact figure I was trying to raise, and the date I needed to raise it by. I also created a postcard, that I used as a pitch tool. The postcard was me on a plane dressed like a stereotypical French person (scarf included). I created a list of all my friends and family that I knew and then I addressed personal letters to all of them with a copy of the picture in it. Once I did that, over the next several weeks the money started to come in, with donations ranging from $9, to $1,000 dollars. Most of the money came in after three weeks. I think it ended raising a little over $4,000 dollars and with that I was able to pay the program fee, airfare, and have enough to travel to Germany and Nice afterwards for another 10 days!

I used the CMIC fund raising template and tweaked the format a bit to best described myslef. I made sure my letter clearly explained my objective and how the trip to Cannes was going to help my career and promised to send people updates and a full recap (pictures, video, blogs) upon my return. I sent the letter to everyone I had previously worked for, my school, and all of my family and soon the help started to come. I was able to raise about 2,800 in addition to getting my school to cover the flight expense.

I didn’t use a template, a format or a previous recommendation. It was simple…I used faith. I knew that I was going to the Cannes Film Festival- I just didn’t know how. I could not afford the trip and didn’t have the time to do major fundraising because of my work schedule- so I used my schedule to my advantage. I created a letter stating my career aspirations and I hung the letter throughout the office with a bucket underneath it. Everyone pitched in a dollar or two here and there but it still wasn’t enough to send me to Cannes. Luckily for me, I was working on Nick Cannon’s Wild N Out in the Talent department and I had the opportunity to meet Big Boi from Power 106 morning radio show in Los Angeles, CA. With little money and an unapologetic passion, I fearlessly asked him for a contribution. He kindly responded “I’ll pay for the rest of the trip.” Talk about being at the right place at the right time. That Monday morning I went to his office and picked up the check and the rest is history. That check afforded me the opportunity to travel to Paris, Amsterdam, London as well as Cannes. As my grandmother would say “a little faith goes a long way.

The interns were actually well orientated about the places around Cannes, which was great.  They were both were eager and open to helping with anything. 

Everything went so smoothly with Conor as if he had already worked with us. In fact we hired him to work full-time at our office… 

…the interns we had were wonderful and willing to help on everything we had going on at our office; and it was good that during the festival you checked up with us to see how things were going.  We might actually be using one of our Cannes interns in our LA office this summer, so you know how highly we think of their work... 

Every intern I worked with was dependable, enthusiastic, informed and took direction very well. It was a pleasure working with all of them.

Fantastic experience—the interns saved me HOURS of missed sleep by taking on a lot of responsibility and performing tasks efficiently. 

The Cannes interns were instrumental to the overall success of our X-Men: THE LAST STAND world premiere and press junket in Cannes during May, 2006. The interns were extraordinarily talented and resourceful individuals who continues to amaze me year after year. 

The process was great from the initial selection process all the way through to the planning and meet and greet in Cannes.  Really organized and detailed which was great. the interns were great and hugely helpful to our company and our production team while producing packages for the network internationally. 

It is incredibly difficult to coordinate something of this magnitude in Cannes and you guys did an exceptional job.

You paired us extremely well with Kaison and Tarah – they were exactly what we needed, and they seemed to respond well to their tasks as well. very good matches both ways

Students were very focused and keen to learn. They willingly gave their time and energy for free and saw it as a real opportunity.