Monte Carlo Film Festival

Yesterday I had a pleasure to visit Monte Carlo Film Festival in Monaco. The festival is now taking place for the 12th time. The opening confrence was held on Tuesday and the Award Ceremony will be held this Saturday, before the closing dinner. 

How to get there? You book free entries for screenings at the Tourism Office in Monaco, for official galas you will have to pay; and in order to enter some other events, you need an invitation.  I was lucky enough to be invited for a lecture by great American director Peter Bogdanovich. It took place in Theatre des Varietes, at the big port in Monaco at 5 pm. I didn't really know what to expect, I couldn't find much information about it, I've never been to that theatre before and I didn't even know the dress code. 

I think the best way to get there form Nice is to take the bus number 100 and stop at Place des Armes in Monaco, then go down to the port. The theatre is just to the right, less than 5 min walk from the bus stop, however we had some major problems finding it, you have to pass the little playground, then the school at here it is, hidden in the back.

Good for us, we arrived on time and got really great seats. Apart from a few rows in the middle, that were booked, the rest was not numbered. 

The lecture started with a speech by the main director Ezio Greggio. To my biggest surprise it was in Italian. Can't tell much about it since I don't really know Italian. Funny, I realize Monaco is just on the palm of a hand from Italy, but I've always thought the official language was French. After the short presentation Peter Bogdanovich came.

He looks exactly like on all the photos you can google. 

This so called lecture was more like an interview-biography-filmmaking talk. Really interesting. Shame some ladies in a row in front of me spend the whole time on Facebook and some others playing CandyCrush. Well I guess I'll just never understand this kind of people. If you don't really give a shit, why would you come just to embarrass yourself? Anyway, Bogdanovich was such a nice man! What a great stories he has. He would just casually say oh well, then Audrey Hepburn came and told me that...   Alfred Hitchcock scared the shit out of me... me and Orson Wells were having breakfast when... What a great life he had! Knowing all these amazing people, working with them, being a friend to all this legends. I mean I can't really imagine what's like to talk to Audrey or have a drink with Alfred, share a croissant with Orson. Pure abstraction, if you ask me. However, I must admit he's a bit odd. Not like scary odd. But his specific face expression made me wonder what was going on his mind. He spoke a bit about the beginning of his career and love for film, about filmmaking technics, that probably wouldn't mean anything to you, unless you're a film geek. He also talked about his last film, 'She's funny that way'. It was screened the first day of the festival, shame I didn't have a chance to see it. It should be in cinemas some time this spring. Can't wait! 

His attitude and honesty were really striking for me. He didn't bother saying there were things he didn't like, didn't find interesting or well made. The meeting finished with him telling some funny stories. 

After him another gust came in, apparently really famous, cause paparazzi were screaming hahaha. Unfortunately the next part was held in Italian which means no point for us in staying. On our way out we popped up on Peter and obviously I had to do something stupid such as asking him to hire me. Good job, he was probably having a blast deep inside. Anyway, if he did that, he kept it for himself. He spoke to me for a while and wished me luck ;)

All the photo credits: Ally R.

Fête du citron in Menton

So last Sunday I was in Menton for the Fete du Citron. This is one of the strangest things I've seen in France so far (next to vine sachets I guess).

How did I get there?
From Nice you can take a bus number 100 that starts at Promenade des Arts. It's 1.5 euro and it takes about an hour to get there. The biggest advantage of the bus are the great views, as it goes through Villefranche, Monaco, Cap d'Ail. This time we decided to take the train. It's 4 euros, goes from Nice Ville (Gare SNCF, Gare Thiers-the tram stop) and it takes about 30 min to get to Menton.

What is Fete du Citron?
Apparently this is somethig Menton is very famous for. I've never heard about this before. My friend mentioned it to me a few weeks ago saying this is the 'it thing' and I totally had to come. So I did. The whole city was decorated with lemons. They were everywhere. Lemon cake, lemon muffin, lemon brioche, lemon-just-lemon.

                                                        Street in the city centre  

                                            The lemon-just-lemon, but a really huge one

Then we went for lemon parade. It reminded me a lot of carnival in Notting Hill in London. Music, dancers, clowns and the rest of this carnival-ish stuff. Less drinking than in London, but much  more confetti. The one spectacular thing that differs Menton carnival parade from similar events are the enormous lemon-orange sculptures. Absolutely amazing. Lemon-orange panda, snake, dragon and a lot more. The parade started at 2:30 and was about 1.5h long.

                                                  Confetti to the left, fake snow to the right!

                                          Geez, how did she even... ? Outstanding costume.

Later we went to the garden. A bit less hectic with less people, so we finally had a chance to take a closer look at the amazing instalation. We had joint ticket, Corso des fruits + jardin for 15 euros, standing places, you can get seats if you want to, but I like that with the standing ticket you can freely move around, follow the interesitng group if you feel like. My friends pre-booked the tickets, however I got mine in turist office on Sunday and it still was ok, I was a bit scared they would be sold out.  I'm wondering what they're going to do with all the fruit after the carnival. If you know, please leave a comment. Similar parade took place last Sunday and the last one is on 1st March, that is this Sunday, in case you're interested in going.

                           This rat/mouse with white, plastic fingers really freaked me out.

In the garden you can buy lemon souvenirs. There were lemon trees, lemon jam, some other food stuff I didn't quite get, plates, mugs, you can also have a cup of tee, with lemon naturally.

More info: Fete du citron official site

                                                  Always blue sky in Riviera. Hi there!