Outside, along the edge of the pavement, a blue velvet rope hangs from chromium posts. Gorillas in dinner suits guard the entrance and, behind the rope, hundreds of wannabes stand night after night hoping to be admitted, the intense young men lugging bags full of film scripts, the girls close to naked and some terribly young. ‘Sluts in training,’ Binky remarked as we turned the corner and saw the usual line up. We had left David in the bar at the Majestic surrounded by admirers and journalists. Cheats didn’t win best short film at Cannes, but being nominated is recognition in itself and David was being hyped as ‘on the way’, an auteur with a personal signature. He was 24 and awfully handsome, all the more so with the new confidence gained from his film. Other writers were now giving him feature projects to read and, with Hermann Mann his tutor, he had abandoned his own bag of scripts and acquired a Hugo Boss black linen suit. When you imagine the Cannes Film Festival, the first thing that comes to mind are the stars in starry glitter walking the red carpet to premières, the phallic lenses of the paparazzi, the ravenous eyes of the watching crowd.
