Story by Ashraf Ghori - I know it’s a long time coming, but here we go.

A few months ago, working around the clock, Team Xpanse was buried under the seemingly impossible task of finishing our film ‘Levity Xero-Error Minus1′ in time to submit for the Gulf Film Festival in April. At the time, screening our film at The Cannes Film Festival was the last possible thing on our minds.

Fast forward to May 11th 2010, after a successful debut and official selection at The Gulf Film Festival, and ‘Levity-Xero Error Minus1′ was now on its way to Cannes. I was accompanied by Waqqas Qadir Sheikh [Associate Producer] on our merry way to the 63rd Festival De Cannes. Stranger things have happened I suppose. Making preparations for the trip however required some reseach and some guess work. We armed ourselves with some new bags, posters, 500 fliers, lots of business cards, and a roll up stand. Being in touch with the organizers at Cannes helped plan the trip.

I had last visited France 18 years ago, so a lot would have changed by now. There was the big task of getting our French visas and flight arrangements organized on time & the next to impossible task of finding hotel accommodation close to the Festival action, so close to the Festival date. Thanks to  Google’s street view we started walking virtually in Cannes to figure out where everything was. This helped us feel at home when we eventually landed there. The visa processing took about a week and we budgeted roughly 2000+ Euros each for the 2 weeks.

The closest hotel we could find was 3.5 kilometres away from the ‘Palais De Festivals’ the main venue of the festival. In a worst case scenario we figured we would have to walk 7 kms every day. Nothing would keep us from our destination.

A few days before leaving, a friend and supporter Susan Macaulay [@amazingsusan on twitter] met us and gave us a quick lesson in public speaking & presenting a pitch. It helped me think clearly & get my focus when I would give a presentation in Cannes in the following week.

Our trip to Cannes was quite a media affair with major coverage on TV, radio & newspapers in the UAE. The Xero Error fans on twitter had taken it to task to get us 1500+ views for our trailer [http://www.youtube.com/xpansecgi] which was just launched before we left for Cannes. @AmazingSusan called up the day we were traveling to inform me that I was going on air in half an hour on Dubai Eye. Apparently Susan @maniKarthik @mich1mich @mita56 @theregos and some of our top tweeps got the whole of Dubai involved in this. It was a beautiful gesture by our friends to show their support for us struggling filmmakers. Needless to say the hits we got on youtube were a lot more than that.  It goes without saying that if it wasn’t for the support and encouragement we’ve constantly received from our friends we would not have gone this far.

Even after organizing everything quickly, we weren’t quite there yet. News of fresh volcano eruptions and ash clouds cancelling European flights were all over the papers. People were assuming the worst with flights to Italy, France & UK getting cancelled. We were determined not to let even a natural calamity get in the way.

On the 11th we were joined by Abdul Basit Qureshi, another Dubai-based filmmaker also featuring his film ‘Fish in a bowl’ at Cannes.  After a comfortable 6 and half hour flight we landed at Vienna to continue our connecting flight to Nice, France. At first the 3 hour delay for our Nice flight just seemed like a test of patience. This proved to be a blessing in disguise since we got to visit the historic city of Vienna. It’s centuries of culture was more than apparent in our quick tour of the city. The Vienna Airport is not more than half an hour away from the heart of the city, a chance not to be missed. This was followed by a hearty meal from the airlines before we departed for Nice.

The flight to Nice was about an hour and a half. The cabin crew were dressed like they were ready to party with pink tops and jeans. Nice, in the south of France, was considerably warmer than Vienna. It was 40 kilometres away from Cannes. The only mode of transport available was the bus or the overpriced taxis. After a half an hour bus ride, coincidentally the first thing I saw in Cannes was the Google street view car

To be continued in Part2