All the Love You Cannes!

After volunteering for Troma at the Cannes film festival, I can now fully appreciate how difficult it is to make your voice heard at a film festival such as Cannes. The fact that Troma is relentless and shows up every year and makes every attempt possible to disrupt the goings on is admirable. It is certainly hard work, and by the end everyone is tired and frustrated, but Troma is persistent. This documentary is brutally honest, and is absolutely wonderful. The volunteers are enthusiastic, which is necessary. The fact that the volunteers are not paid, and must pay for their own flights and food shows that they themselves are doing it because they love Troma. How many major companies have that sort of fan base? True, they harass everyone and cause tons of trouble, but they are doing it for something they truly love. Troma gets noticed because of the volunteers. By having people pay attention to Troma, more attention is paid to independent cinema. Down with Hollywood! The truth is, you may not like Troma, but you will never forget Troma.

I was at the Cannes film festival in 2003, I was making a documentary myslef but unfortunatly, after a drinking binge, some low life broke into our appartment, whilst we slept, and stole my Camera, along with all my footage. I was gutted and after being granted only temporary accreditation, 3 days, I soon realized that I was at the most famous film festival in the world and I could not get in to see any films.

However one day we investigated the film market, where I happend upon the troma stall, with severed heads dangling form the cielling and a short jewish man shouting to a crowd of people to meet tomorow for the annual Troma march, it was Lloyd Kaufman, I recognized him because a friend of mine is a Troma fan, but I was not.

However he was the only guy there who had time for us, we explained the robbery and the nightmare we were having, he went out back and came back with "all the love you Cannes" on DVD. He gave it to me for free and said this is what I made.

After watching it, and being at the festival myself, I can tell you that this is honest and real. You can see the frustrations of being a small time film company battling against the big guys, like warner bros. You can see the troma team attacking themselves and it feels like the whole thing will fall appart, but you also feel that next year they will be back again to fight on.

All the love you Cannes is funny ,informative, and very dramatic at times. Its rough around the edges but at least its honest, which is hard to come by. Ive got my tickets for Cannes 2004 (round 2) hope to see Troma there too.

This film was a true test of endurance...

I was almost tempted to walk out of the theatre on many occasion as the "threatrics of Doug & Gang" can be a tad overbearing...A redefinition of artistry is in order after witnessing TROMA pictures' marketing efforts...

But then one gradually understand the theme of this thrashy docu, and must admit its pretty lofty, "that of the struggles indie film makers have to go through to make themselves heard & seen, in our oppressing times of monopolistic movie cartels."

The levels of desperation those sorry bunch of people descend to, is afterwhile(after the desensitisation to their horrid antics),....sad.

In summary, Loved that dog, hated Doug's guts, and sympathies to everyone working for Carlton Hotel. Most importantly, Scott should quit his thankless job;). Then again, the docu is so manipulative, don't be surprised if everything from start go is "staged"...

An unforgettable experience(not necessary a good one).....

All the Love You Cannes was a very entertaining documentary. I am a new Troma fan and a lover of independent movies, especially those in the horror genre. I recently attended Dragoncon in Atlanta,GA and met Lloyd Kaufman who was very nice.

The Troma team use some original techniques in trying to get the Troma name out there in this doc. It seems that while Kaufman has a good head on his shoulders, some of his employees(particularly one obnoxious fellow) do not. The doc shows the struggle of a small studio fighting to get attention away from the majors.

Particularly the theme of breaking the monopoly that the major studios have on not only the Cannes film festival but the business in general is always prevalent in the doc. If there's one educational thing about this film, it is that most "independent" movies are not that independent at all. A film that is truly independent will have to fight to be seen, and tactics out of the norm may have to be used.

Known for what must be the cheapest and cheesiest of the indie film world, Troma films takes on Cannes with gallons of fake blood, the Tronettes, and numerous hijinks by an uncontrollable group of volunteer Troma fans, costumed, naked, and did I mention covered with blood?

The most ultrazany documentary ever made? Well its on the list anyway.

Whileany publicity is good publicity, the low budget Troma films must wonder what this will do to their reputation. And I think they're thinking, woohoo!