Cannes ‘mind-blowing' for Queenstown film-maker
Queenstowner Victoria Boult jokes she's now officially a controversial Cannes film-maker.
Last week the two episodes of n00b, the TV series she co-created with Rachel Fawcett, were screened at the Cannes International Series Festival 2025, in France, having been nominated in the 'short form' section.
It was ultimately named runner-up in the Cannesseries Student Award.
Boult estimates up to 300 people were in the audience watching its screening, and counted six or seven who walked out after one infamous scene involving gingernuts.
"Fair play," she quips.
"I was watching it on the big screen and was like, 'wow, I forgot how in your face this is'.
"I was talking to someone about this afterwards and they were like, 'every great Cannes film-maker has someone angrily walk out of the screening'.
"I'm proud of the fact we are now, officially, controversial Cannes film-makers."
That aside, Boult, 27, says there was a hugely positive reaction to the show, which started out as a TikTok series.
Set in Gore, n00b is a nostalgic teen sex comedy about 2005, bad fashion choices, emo music and flip phones.
It's subsequently been picked up by Netflix Australia and was showcased at the Berlinale Series Market in February.
She says the overall Cannes experience, for a small-town Kiwi girl, was "mind-blowing".
Alongside meeting "aspirational" people such as Beau Willimon, the American developer of House of Cards, and composer Isobel Waller-Bridge, Boult was the only Kiwi invited to participate in the Cannes 'writers' club', comprising 40 writers from across the world, including Emmy nominees and head writers on Disney shows, to attend two and a-half days of workshops, and mix and mingle with all manner of creatives.
She's now got "a group of incredibly talented writer friends from all over the world", and believes the experience has opened some serious doors.
"This literally has enabled me to make some concrete steps forward in my career, which I'm very grateful for."
A huge highlight was getting to walk the pink carpet with n00b actor Jaxson Cook (James) — "for a hot minute I was living my own early 2000s dream of watching the E channel ... being like, 'one day I'll get to walk on the red carpet and tell journalists what I'm wearing'," (for the record, a dress designed by Kiwi brand knuefermann) — but sharing the experience with her mum, Karen, was the icing on top.
"If I could bring everyone with me and have everyone on the carpet [to say] thank you for helping me get here, I would have done it.
"But to have the person I think probably who has been my biggest cheerleader from day one — apart from maybe my dad [former Queenstown mayor Jim] — there with me, and to get to see my mum killing it and slaying in the photographs ... and celebrate her and all the contributions she's made to my career has been very meaningful."
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