Highlights of the Cannes Film Festival

I arrived to Cannes on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The city was already wallpapered with Marcelo Mastroanni everywhere, who was chosen to appear on the annual poster of the festival. I went to the Palais de Festival to pick up my accreditation for the week. The streets were filled with tourists and people from the film industy. All the hotels were decorated with billboards of the latest movies.

The first night we went to the Hunger Games party in a villa about half an hour away from Cannes. The villa was enormous and everything was set up in Hunger Games theme. All the rooms were decorated with the logo of the TV series. In the garden there was an enormous tent with chandeliers and torches and about 1000 people were partying to really fantastic music. Food was in abundance and the champagne was flowing. All the staff had the same smoky eyes and dark outfits. Even Wesley Snipes showed up at the party. The party was great fun with lots of industry people from LA.

Sunday morning I decided to wake up early to catch the press conference of Homesman with Hillary Swank, Tommy Lee-Jones and Luc Besson. The best thing about the conference was to see how beautiful Hillary Swank was in life. After taking a couple of photos, I headed over to the Carlton Hotel for the press conference of Expendables 3. I could not believe how many stars were present on that press conference. There were Sly Stallone, Dolph Lundgreen, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson with a big beard. I was amazed by seeing so many superstars in one room.

Monday I managed to see Bennett Miller’s new movie the Foxcatcher. The movie received amazing reviews. It is rumoured to be the next Oscar winning movie of the year. The movie was certainly really shocking. I really liked the movie. It was the best movie I saw during the festival. After the screening of the movie, the after-party was at Baoli on the beach, where I met the director as well as the composer of the movie.

Even managed to take a photo with beautiful and charming Jessica Chastain.

The night continued at the Cannes airport where Chopard threw its annual party in an airport hangar. The venue was amazing. There was a big plane in the middle of the venue. The DJ was operating out of the pilot cabin of the plane. There were many beautiful people at the party in beautiful dresses. I ran into Alessandra Ambrosia and Adrianna Lima as well. They both looked beautiful.

Tuesday, I started the day with watching Kroenenberg’s new movie Maps to the Stars with Julianne Moore and John Cusack. The movie reminded me of American Beauty first. Everyone in the movie were completely crazy, so I found it quiet amusing in the beginning. However, by the end of the movie, the story turned out to be tragic, so I was a bit disappointed by the ending. After the movie, I dropped by the photo call of Ryan Gosling’s new movie Lost River.  

It was funny to see so many photographers piling on top of each other. They all went crazy once Ryan Gosling appeared. At night, de Grisogono organized its annual party at the Hotel du Cap Eden Rock. I got there pretty late, but the party was rocking. I ran into many topmodels. There was Ana Beatriz Barros and many others. Paris Hilton appeared as well in a very beautiful pink-black dress. I managed to take a photo with Antonio Banderas and Adrian Brody. They were both really nice. After long hours of dancing and socializing and drinking we got back to Cannes around 6am.

Wednesday, I decided to see Ryan Gosling’s movie Lost River. The movie received very bad reviews from the critiques. It was honestly a torture to watch, so I left the movie theatre after 45 minutes. At night we dropped by the Fashion TV party, then walked around along the port, where we saw many celebrities by accident. We saw John Travolta, who looks so bad with dyed black hair. We saw Kyle Minogue, Heidi Klum, Andy Vajna. I was tired and I did not feel like partying or even taking pictures at this point. It was an early night for us. 

Thursday was a big day, I not only moved to the Carlton, but I was getting ready all day for the biggest party of the Cannes Film Festival, the amfAR gala. This party is usually the absolute greatest party of the festival where one can see many celebrities. The party was at the Hotel du Cap Eden Rock again. A huge gold mammoth was displayed by the entrance. It was a gift from Damien Hirst for the event.

The party was absolutely packed with celebrities and topmodels. I saw many models, like Rosie Huntington-Whitley, Angela Lindwell, Barbara Palvin, Karolina Kurkova. Most of them looked much shorter and simpler in life than on photo. We also saw Adrian Brody again, who speaks pretty good Hungarian. Harvey Weinstein was there as well. I caught Heidi Klum chatting with Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber is a short little guy who was walking around in sunglasses as if he was the biggest celebrity of the night. Heidi Klum looked stunning.

Singer Robin Thicke showed up as well along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tarantino. I also saw Jessica Chastain chatting in the corner. It was an absolutely fabulous night where all the celebrities came together to celebrate.

Friday morning I ran to the Palais de Festival to see the last movie before departing from Cannes. White God was a Hungarian movie shot from the perspective of a stray dog. The movie was very intense and touching. The audience stood up in a standing ovation in the end of the movie. The movie ended up winning the prize in Un Certain Regard category, so I was very glad I saw it. It was a very special film. After the movie we ran to the Carlton to check out and headed to Monaco for the grand Prix.

Monaco Open for Easter

We flew down to Monaco on a Friday morning to see the tennis. It was a rainy day at Heathrow. We sat in the executive lounge and had some breakfast while watching the planes taking off.

Despite of the bad weather, Heathrow looked good, with all the colorful planes coming in and out in every direction. Nice is a quick flight from London, so we arrived in just over an hour. It was a bit chilly in the South of France, but the scenery was beautiful. We took a taxi to the Hotel de Paris, dropped our luggage off and headed out to see the tennis. When we arrived, Nadal was playing against David Ferrer. Unfortunately Nadal lost in two sets.

Afterwards we saw Federer playing against Tsonga. Tsonga won the first set, but then Federer turned the game around and ended up winning in three sets.

We also saw Djokovic playing against a Spaniard. The game was similar to Federer's game. The Spaniard won the first set, then Djokovic turned the game around and won the game. By the third game it got really chilly in the stadium. Even though I looved the scenery with the mountains behind the tennis court, it got quiet cold in the end.

At night, we ended the day in SASS Cafe. After dinner the athmosphere was amazing! Everyone was dancing on the tables. We had a fantastic time. Although, we were tired from the trip so went to bed pretty early. The next day we went to watch tennis again. This time Stanislaw Wawrinka was playing against David Ferrer and the Spaniard lost. I was sad about it. After that Djokovic lost against Federer. Djokovic claimed that he was injured. You could tell he was very annoyed by the fact that he was losing. It was interesting to watch his frustration on the court.

Saturday was a much warmer day than Friday was. The sun was out. After the game, we walked back to the hotel. it was a nice walk, took about half an hour. We spent the afternoon at the American Bar of the Hotel de Paris, where a band was playing. Hotel de Paris has a really beautiful lobby, although the rooms are kind of old and ran down.

Later on we had dinner at Nobu. Federer happened to sit at the table next to us. It was funny to watch him in real life. After dinner we ended up at Jimmy'z where Bob Sinclair was playing.

The party was pretty nice. the crowd was full of good looking French and Italian boys.

Fashion Week in Paris for a Weekend

Sarah and I decided to go to Paris for a weekend during fashion week. Fashion week is always special as there are many fashion shows and fashion parties packed with celebrities and it is a good time for me to catch up with friends who live in Paris. Sarah loves fashion, she is the most fashionable friend I have and she writes for some fashion magazine, therefore she gets access to a lot of shows and fashion events. I arrived to Paris on a Thursday night, we stayed by the Arc de Triomphe near Champs Elysee. The location was super. The next day we woke up and decided to hit the shows. Every day we visited about 2-3 fashion shows. I wasn't particulary keen on the shows, but Sonya loves the shows so I decided to accompany her. We saw a number of shows each day, such as Isabel Marant, Victor & Rolf, Celine, Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto. I was not particularly interested in the shows but in the end I did enjoy some of the shows. Victor & Rolf was a cool show the catwalk was painted to look like a street and a guitar player was playing during the show. They even installed a street light on the catwalk. I was not very impressed by the cloths. There were many Asians in the audience. I think Asians love this designer. We also ran into Karlie Kloss backstage. She is so tall. She must be around 185cm.

My absolute favorite show was the Vivienne Westwood show. it took place in a church. The show was beautiful the cloths and the models were very beautiful.

I did run into Juergen Teller backstage after the show. Juergen discovered me as a model over 10 years ago back in Budapest and him and his partner invited me to shoot in London for several magazines when I was 17. Bumping into him brought back some very special memories. We chatted for a while about my life and his work. He was with his daughter, who grew up since the last time I saw her. She must be around 15 years old, she was very little when I first met her. The Yohji Yamamoto show was right next to the Eiffel Tower, so Sarah and I took a picture right in front of the famous Eiffel Tower.

Saturday night we ended up at the Anne Fontaine party in the Palais de Tokyo. Coconut water was the sponsor so they were giving out coconut water for free. That was a nice surprise for somebody like me who doesnt really like drinking alcohol. The party was a bit boring, we did get a nice gift bag with a white collar that can be attached to a blouse. The next day we hit a couple of more shows, although I was not so keen on seeing any more shows. The best thing about the shows was that they were in the Jardin des Tulieries by the Louvre. So we took a couple of nice photos there.  

At night we went to the best party I had been to in a very long time. The whole fashion industry was there. It was an amazing party. All the topmodels, designers showed up. Rihanna was there with a group of bodyguards. Noone was allowed to take any pics of her. We did manage to take a photo of Jessica Alba with Sarah. Jessica was very nice. We saw many of the topmodels like Arizone Muse, Anna Rubik. The party was at an amazing venue with lots of booze and food. The room was full of creative artsy types, photographers, models, designers, fashion bloggers. It was certainly a great party. We took a couple of photos together.

Next day we decided to venture out, visit some museums and indulge on delicious French sweets. We found a store that sold only eclairs. We tasted a couple of them and they were all very delicious. On Sunday night I flew back to London, I was partied out and recharged. I was excited about the great weekend we had in Paris.