Cannes is a beautiful, gruelling circus. I wouldn’t quit it for anything (opens in new tab)

The festival is a celebration of cinema and a frantic trade show all at once. After 25 years, I can’t help but go backNothing prepares you for the shock that is the Cannes film festival: the adrenaline, the fatigue, the elation and the emotion, but also the hunger, the anger, the magic and the ridicule. For young cinephiles, and for almost everybody who works in the film industry, it is the mecca of cinema and has been so for nearly eight decades. Anyone going for the first time this week, as...