So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?

Host: The hotel lobby in Cannes glowed like a dream built on champagne and flashbulbs — a symphony of designer fabrics, soft jazz, and the endless murmur of people pretending to be effortless. Beyond the glass doors, the Mediterranean shimmered, pale blue and eternal, its waves whispering secrets older than cinema itself.

Host: Jack leaned against the marble pillar, wearing the kind of tuxedo that had seen too many late nights and too few victories. His tie hung loose, his grey eyes sardonic, reflecting the camera flashes bursting outside. Across from him, Jeeny sipped a flute of rosé, her black hair cascading like a sentence she hadn’t finished. Her expression balanced somewhere between amusement and disbelief.

Host: Between them lay an open tabloid spread, the headline glowing in bold gold letters:

“Christina Aguilera Asks: ‘So, where’s the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?’”

Jeeny: smiling over her glass “You have to admire her for it. One question, and she made the entire industry laugh at itself without meaning to.”

Jack: “Oh, she meant to. No one survives fame that long without knowing exactly when to play the fool.”

Jeeny: “You think it was irony?”

Jack: “Of course. The perfect satire of celebrity culture — a question so obvious it exposes how absurdly self-important everyone here is. Cannes asking about Cannes — that’s poetry.”

Host: A waiter passed, carrying a tray of gold-rimmed glasses. The air shimmered with perfume and ego. Laughter spilled from the bar like champagne — too loud, too polished, too rehearsed.

Jeeny: “But what if it wasn’t irony? What if it was just... ignorance? Wouldn’t that be even more poetic?”

Jack: “Innocence mistaken for wit — the last real scandal left in the entertainment industry.”

Jeeny: grinning “And yet, it fits. Cannes itself is a festival of appearances — of people pretending to be profound while desperately trying to look accidental.”

Jack: “That’s the magic of it. Everyone here’s acting, even when the cameras are off. Especially then.”

Host: Outside, a limousine pulled up, and a crowd of photographers surged like a single living organism. The sky glowed lavender above the red carpet.

Jeeny: “You’ve always hated this kind of thing,” she said.

Jack: “No, I don’t hate it. I just don’t worship it. This—” he gestured to the crowd, the lights, the noise “—this is modern mythology. Olympus with better lighting.”

Jeeny: “And worse dialogue.”

Jack: laughing “Exactly.”

Host: The music shifted to something older — Sinatra, or maybe just a memory of him — filling the room with nostalgia that no one had earned.

Jeeny: “You know what I love about her quote?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “It reminds me that even in a world obsessed with perfection, one moment of absurdity still feels like truth. The smartest people here rehearse their flaws. She just was hers.”

Jack: “So you think sincerity’s the new rebellion?”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it always?”

Host: The waiter returned, replacing their empty glasses with new ones. The bubbles rose slowly, like quiet applause.

Jack: “You know,” he said, glancing at the quote again, “it’s actually a philosophical question if you tilt your head. ‘Where is the Cannes Film Festival being held?’ Maybe it’s not about location. Maybe it’s about meaning.”

Jeeny: teasingly “Oh, God, you’re doing it again.”

Jack: “No, listen. Every year, it’s the same place, same ritual, same worship of image. But what if Cannes isn’t a city anymore? What if it’s just... the idea of being seen?”

Jeeny: “You’re saying the festival isn’t held in France. It’s held in attention.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Jeeny: softly “And attention has no map.”

Host: Outside, applause erupted — someone famous had arrived. Flashbulbs turned night into daylight for a heartbeat. Inside, Jeeny and Jack sat in their small island of calm, two souls talking truth while the rest of the world performed its illusions.

Jeeny: “It’s funny,” she said. “All these people — directors, actors, critics — pretending they’re shaping art, when really they’re just chasing the same thing she was.”

Jack: “Which is?”

Jeeny: “Relevance. The need to be seen, to matter, to exist in someone else’s gaze.”

Jack: quietly “Maybe that’s all fame is — the fear of invisibility.”

Jeeny: “And the festival is just our way of turning that fear into a red carpet.”

Host: A pause. The crowd outside roared again, louder this time, the kind of sound that could swallow individuality whole.

Jack: “You know, I envy her in a way.”

Jeeny: “Christina?”

Jack: “Yeah. For asking the question everyone’s too self-aware to ask. The one that reminds us that even the most glamorous rituals are built on human confusion.”

Jeeny: “That’s the beauty of it. A joke mistaken for wisdom, or wisdom mistaken for a joke — either way, it breaks the illusion.”

Jack: “And that’s the real art.”

Host: The lights dimmed as the crowd outside moved toward the beachside screenings. The sea gleamed under the spotlight, reflecting a thousand fragments of borrowed glory.

Host: Jeeny set her glass down, the sound sharp against the marble.

Jeeny: “So, Jack, where’s the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?”

Jack: smiling “Everywhere someone’s pretending not to care.”

Host: The words lingered, soft as the sea breeze slipping through the open doors.

Host: And as the noise outside faded into the rhythm of waves and distant applause, Aguilera’s question seemed to hover in the air — not as ignorance, but as irony incarnate:

“So, where’s the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?”

Host: Because even in the temple of cinema,
we still forget that the stage isn’t the world —
it’s just a mirror that flatters the watchers.

Host: Every red carpet is a loop —
every flashbulb a reminder
that brilliance and blindness
are made of the same light.

Host: And somewhere, between laughter and revelation,
between ego and innocence,
Jack and Jeeny understood —

Host: that perhaps the most honest question ever asked at Cannes
was the one that dared to sound foolish.