Preparing
Your English

You stop listening. You start anticipating the next question before they finish asking it. You give the answer you prepared rather than the one that fits this specific conversation. The people on the other side of that conversation can tell.

At Cannes, most people are both. They have been in back-to-back meetings since nine in the morning. They are running on espresso and very little sleep. Reading the room means knowing when to get to the point faster, when to step back, and when the conversation has run its course before you have finished your pitch.

It happens. Someone is not the right fit. The meeting does not go where you hoped. The mistake is carrying that into the next conversation. Cannes runs on momentum and the ability to start fresh, again and again, over ten days.

Knowing your project and being able to explain it clearly, in English, to someone you have never met, in a conversation that goes somewhere unexpected, are not the same thing. The pressure of the Marche, the pace of the conversations, the questions that come from directions you did not anticipate — these are things you can prepare for. The professionals who handle them best are not necessarily the most fluent. They are the ones who have rehearsed the situations, not just the pitch.

Working in English day to day and performing under pressure in English at Cannes are different. The terrace conversation that turns into a Marche meeting, the investor question you were not expecting, the follow-up with someone who wants more detail than you prepared — these demand a different level. Practising the specific situations you will face, rather than English in general, is what closes that gap.

A pitch you can rehearse alone. A conversation requires someone pushing back, reframing, going off script. The preparation that actually helps at Cannes is the kind that puts you in the room before you are in the room — working through the questions, the interruptions, the moments where you have to think on your feet and stay clear.

Not every conversation at Cannes is about your project. People want to know what you think about what is screening, what is selling, where the market is heading. Having a point of view in English, rather than just answering questions about your own work, is what makes conversations worth continuing.

Reading the trades helps, but working through these topics with someone else forces you to form and express opinions rather than just absorb information. It also keeps the wider industry front of mind, not just your own project. That kind of preparation is useful whether you are pitching something or simply there to make connections.

The instinct when someone pushes is to give more — more context, more explanation, more reassurance. That is usually the wrong move. It signals that you are not fully confident in what you have, and it opens up questions you were not ready for.

What works better is giving the precise answer and stopping. If something is confirmed, say so clearly and move on. If something is still in discussion, say that too, without dressing it up. They are not looking for a perfect picture. They are looking for an honest one. The tighter and more direct your answers, the more credible the picture becomes.

Know those numbers cold before you walk in. Not approximately. Precisely. Because if you hesitate on budget or fumble on who is actually confirmed, the conversation shifts and it rarely comes back. They are not being difficult by jumping ahead. They are checking whether the basics hold up before they invest more time.

When they jump, go with them. Answer directly, then try to bring the conversation back to the wider picture if you need to. Saying something like "happy to go there, and I also want to make sure you have the full context" keeps you in the room without being evasive.

This happens when you do not have a clear enough sense of what the essential version of the pitch is. If every question pulls you into a sidetrack, it usually means the structure is not solid enough to hold under pressure. The detail is fine to have. The issue is when it starts to replace the argument rather than support it.

The fix is knowing in advance which details matter and which ones can wait. If someone asks about a line item in the budget during the first five minutes, you can answer briefly and redirect. If you spend ten minutes defending a number before they understand what the film actually is, you have lost the room.

Be clear about the difference before you go in. Know exactly what is confirmed, what is in active discussion, and what is still genuinely open. Then say each of those things using language that matches the reality. "In final discussion" is different from "attached." "We are exploring options" is different from "we have interest."

The people you are meeting hear this language all day. They know the difference. Using the right words, even when the answer is less neat, tells them you are someone they can trust. Overstating what is locked in and having it unravel later is far more damaging than being honest about where things stand.

Answer what was asked. Not the version of it you were hoping for, and not a broader point you wanted to make anyway. The moment you start answering a different question, they notice. And a long answer to a short question almost always creates more questions, not fewer.

If the question is genuinely complex, it is fine to say so briefly before answering. That is not evasion. What is evasion is padding, going in circles, or making them ask the same thing twice.

Once the questions start coming fast, a lot of people lose the thread of where the conversation was supposed to go. The meeting becomes entirely their agenda and you spend the rest of it responding rather than leading.

You do not need to be rigid about it. But knowing the two or three things you need them to understand before the meeting ends gives you something to navigate back to. When there is a natural pause, that is your moment. Not to restart the pitch from the beginning, but to land the point that has not been made yet. A brief, clear bridge back to what matters is not pushy. It is professional.

The defensive reaction usually comes from taking it personally. They are not questioning your judgment as a filmmaker. They are doing the commercial calculation they do for every project they sit with.

Acknowledge what they are saying before you respond to it. Not to agree with it, but to show you have actually heard it. Then make your case clearly, with specific reasons rather than general assertions. If you stay grounded in the argument rather than the feeling, you will come across as confident rather than rattled. And if they still do not buy it, that is a position you can hold without the room turning uncomfortable.

Projects start to bleed into each other faster than you expect, especially when you are tired and the meetings are back to back. The details get mixed up. A number from one project ends up in the pitch for another. A tone that works for one film gets carried into a conversation where it does not fit.

The answer is a clear reset between meetings, even a short one. Two minutes to look at your notes, remind yourself which project you are walking into and what the key points are. It sounds basic. It makes a real difference by day four.

The core of the project does not change. What changes is the emphasis. With a sales agent you lead on market and commercial positioning. With a financier you lead on the numbers and risk structure. With a distributor you focus on audience and territory fit. The project is the same. The entry point shifts.

Where people get into trouble is when they change the actual positioning depending on who they are talking to and then run into someone who has compared notes with someone else. Know what is fixed about how you describe the project and what is flexible. Consistent core, adapted emphasis. That is the difference.

You mostly do not, unless you have built that into how you prepare. The people who stay sharp late in the week are not running on willpower. They have practised enough that the core of what they need to say is automatic, which frees up the mental energy for the actual conversation in front of them.

It also helps to have a very short version of every key answer ready. Not a full pitch, just the one or two sentences that carry the weight of each point. When the energy goes, those sentences still hold. The longer, more elaborate version gets harder to sustain. The short version does not.