It shouldn’t happen to a film journalist
Editor-at-Large JAMIE GRAHAM lifts the lid on film journalism.
Jury service: Jamie reflects on the perils of sitting on a film awards panel.
‘SITTING NEXT TO TOM FORD POURED SERIOUS FUEL ONTO MY INFERIORITY COMPLEX’
Iwrite this column from the south of France, a week into the Cannes Film Festival, my brain blitzed by images of jury president Alejandro G. Iñárritu and the rest of his jurors (including Kelly Reichardt, Pawel Pawlikowski, Yorgos Lanthimos, Elle Fanning and Robin Campillo) walking red carpets, and the cacophony of 4,000 journalists debating who should win the coveted Palme d’Or.
It is a debate, at once friendly and ferocious, that Iñárritu and co will themselves be having, and I know a little of what it is like to be in that situation – locked in a room with wild eyes and buckets of coffee, thrashing out life-changing decisions. And I don’t just mean the time I served on a jury in a court of law and experienced a real-life
12 Angry Men situation, whereby I argued 11 ‘Guilty’ verdicts around to a unanimous ‘Not Guilty’. That’s another story for another time. No, I mean sitting on film juries, even if none of them can quite match Festival de Cannes in the prestige stakes.
WEDDED DISS
Probably the least prestigious was judging the Wedding Video Of The Year on some cable show. Wedding videos are actually a huge business, with sizeable reputations and contracts at stake, so a great deal was riding on the shoulders of myself and my two fellow jurors as we viewed the shortlist of 10 to select a winner. Thing is, I was young and foolish (as opposed to the old and foolish of now), so I happily accepted the role of playing ‘evil judge’ when the producers of the show explained it would make for good TV. My job was to be wildly outspoken and to ruffle feathers, which I did, naïvely, at one point saying, “Whoever made this video should be shot.” What a dickhead I was – a dickhead who was rightly despised by everyone in the wedding-video business for some years.
More illustrious, at least in theory, was serving on the jury of the 17th Raindance Film Festival in 2009. What I didn’t realise was the sheer amount of time involved, as I was handed 30-odd discs with titles scribbled on them in marker pen, and asked to pick a top three. I had a two-week window, so my wife and I watched two a day. Sounds like heaven? Sadly not – most of the films ranged from shoddy to godawful, and we sat through every minute of them, partly out of professional duty and partly because I’m one of those ludicrous people who has to finish every movie, TV show and book.
Still, one film stood out like a bolt of lightning and was duly crowned Best Feature. Entitled Down Terrace, it introduced the world to Ben Wheatley.
STAR GAZING
My most high-profile gig, though, is twice serving on the jury that selects the shortlist for the Bafta Rising Star Award. Now that was a pleasant way to spend a couple of days, sharing pastries, coffees and film-chat with fellow jury members who included stars such as Sienna Miller, Plan B and Tom Ford. OK, so sitting next to a suited-and-booted Ford in my faded jeans, Lost Boys t-shirt and scuffed trainers poured some serious fuel onto my inferiority complex, but he couldn’t have been more gracious, and discussing movies, with passion, is a great leveller. And while we’re talking of sharing common ground with the rich and famous, my reward was a ticket to the Baftas, where I sat just two rows away from Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and George Clooney.
So those are my experiences on juries. They’re nothing to make Iñárritu look over his shoulder, but who knows, perhaps one day the Festival de Cannes will come knocking. It’s a one-in-a-billion chance, which is to say more likely than me ever being invited back to look at wedding videos.