If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while you already know that I think coffee deserves the same — if not greater — status as soda as an essential of moviegoing. It makes no sense to me that most theaters don’t have espresso bars, forcing us to choose between lukewarm drip coffee or jumping through hoops to sneak a cappuccino in from the outside. Don’t even get me started on studio screenings! As grateful as I always am to attend, most of them take place in random buildings nowhere near a beverage source (a screening of The Lost Daughter at LA Pacific Design Center where we were directed to a vending machine in the parking lot FOR WATER comes to mind as a low point.)
One thing that was still a mystery to me though was the coffee situation at film festivals — especially one as major and seemingly never-ending as Cannes. Hannah Strong, author and digital editor of Little White Lies magazine, who attended 12 (“that felt like 120”) days of the festival came to the rescue with her field notes. I’ve never been to Cannes Film Festival, but I’d like to go one day, and I can rest easy knowing I won’t risk being under-caffeinated between the screenings and queues, and parties.
Without further ado, here’s the Cannes coffee dispatch from Hannah:
Iced coffee around La Croisette can cost up to a whopping 9 Euros
The press room, thankfully, has free coffee and they come in these tiny bad boys:
Beware of any food or beverages while watching Quentin Dupieux’s Full Phil as Kristen Stewart is famously eating copious amounts of food throughout
It seems relatively easy to sneak coffee into a screening, though always be prepared to hide it under a layer of outerwear:
“Smuggled a banana iced latte into the Debussy Theatre (high stakes) for a 2.30pm screening of Victorian Psycho”
“Espresso-tonic made with the free coffee and tonic water in the press lounge to the disgust of everyone around me”
“The elusive Cannes cold brew which I paid 9 Euros for”
“This 12 Euro iced cappuccino intrigued me, but I couldn’t bring myself to find out why it warranted that insane price tag”
“Nespresso hosts a pop-up free café every year in the Palais that anyone with a badge can access. This year it was pool themed. The queue was always out of the door. I never went. They also have a beach where celebrities inexplicably turn up to promote their coffee pods. This year it was Known Vacanza Enjoyer Dua Lipa. I was more excited about the Magnum beach down the road where you could customise a Magnum ice cream.”
“Bonus affogato before 10pm screening of Hope”
And with that, join me in a new challenge: Sneaking an affogato in a movie on a hot summer’s day in the very near future. Sounds like the ideal way to watch Disclosure Day, no?
my family is from near cannes and the thought of being able to get a banana iced latte there is blowing my mind...need to know where hannah found it.