La Montée des Marches

When I was invited to the Cannes Film Festival this year, I didn’t know that I would have walked on the Red Carpet like the movie stars.
I used to watch the festival from my TV screen, and always thought that only actors and film-makers have the possibility to make the famous “Montée des Marches”.
But when I arrived there, a friend explained me that, if I had an invitation for a screening after 6 pm, this meant that I could walk on the red carpet as well.
I have to confess that the first time I saw the famous steps, I thought the place was smaller than expected. Again, when you see it on TV, you have the feeling that the carpet before the steps is immense, but in fact it is not. It is quite short.
I could check that out myself, when one afternoon I was invited to the screening of  Valley of Love by Guillaume Nicloux. And I made my first, informal, montée des marches:

This was also my first time in the Auditorium Louis Lumière, the theatre where the most important screenings and the final ceremony take place.
We managed to have two very good seats in the first row of the Balcony, and it was particularly nice – at the end of the movie – to witness the 15 minutes round of applause that the actors, Isabelle Huppert e Gérard Depardieu, and the film-maker, received from the audience:

But all this was just an avant-goût, as the French say.
The “real thing” was the screening of Macbeth (by Australian director Justin Kurzel) which took place in the evening of Saturday, May 23. I was there with my good friend Amaury, and we were both so lucky to be photographed by the best (and most glamorous) “paparazza” of all the hundreds photographs present at the Festival: my friend Stefania Iemmi. Please check out her work here: http://www.stefaniaiemmi.com/ 
She is so good that we both look like actors: 

Stefania also took a picture of me for my second montée des marches, the day of the Prize Ceremony, Sunday May 24.
I adore this picture and - let's admit it - the dress I am wearing (it is a look-a-like Dior of the '50s bought at The way we wore, an amazing LA vintage shop):

For a moment, I almost felt like her:

 But then I have to hurry up, because the movie was about to start...