Minneapolis writer rubs shoulders with Hollywood royalty at Cannes Film Festival

She shook hands with Spike Lee, locked eyes with Oliver Stone, swam in the Mediterranean three days in a row, stayed at the $1,000-a-night Hotel Martinez (she wasn't paying) and basked in a lengthy standing ovation. So, all in all, Minneapolis writer Jennifer Vogel's trip to the Cannes Film Festival this week was a pretty good one.

"I wasn't even sure I wanted to go but I'm glad I did," said Vogel, whose memoir "Flim-Flam Man: The True Story of My Father's Counterfeit Life" is the inspiration for Sean Penn's in-competition movie "Flag Day." "It's interesting how even though there's so much pomp and circumstance to a situation like that, at least in the settings I was in, there was a lack of pretense, which surprised me. It ended up being a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be."

A freelance writer/editor who's putting the finishing touches on a novel, "Invisible Empire," Vogel watched her memoir, about her complicated relationship with her con man father, get snapped up by Hollywood shortly after it was published in 2004. It then went through numerous Oscar winners (including Alejandro González Iñárritu) and studio regime changes before Penn finally decided to direct and star as her father, with daughter Dylan Penn as Vogel.

"When somebody like Sean Penn, who has so much force of personality and star power, decides to take it on, it's just bizarre. It feels so random. It's almost unbelievable. What am I doing here?' I never dreamed I would be there, watching a film based on my life, on my memoir, on the Mediterranean, wearing high heels and sipping Champagne on a veranda," said Vogel, who had Champagne in her hair, too. At a preshow party, a server splashed it on her, and her stylist told her the booze would enhance her red carpet 'do.

Vogel says she may end up writing about the experience, which included observing people in elegant ballgowns holding up signs that said the French equivalent of "Need tickets" and watching paparazzi swerve away from her in search of a cinematic superstar.

"They're everywhere. It's funny, I got picked up by a festival car at the airport in Nice and I get out of the car and everybody is, 'Oh, it's a festival car!' So they're clustering around with their cameras. But then it's just me in a T-shirt and jeans with my carry-on bag," the former City Pages and MPR journalist said.

The "surreal" screening is where she saw Stone, shook hands with Lee and pondered the long journey that brought her story of small-town Minnesota to one of the world's glitziest resort towns. At the screening, she was seated next to star Dylan Penn — and, in his curtain speech, Sean Penn thanked both his daughter and the woman she played.

"You're the authentic one — they always call me the real Jennifer Vogel — so you're there and they're standing and [the reaction is] 'Oh, my gosh, she made it through. She has all her teeth,'" joked Vogel. "Then, Sean Penn points to me and I'm like, 'Oh, no.' Everyone is looking at me and Oliver Stone is in the row ahead so I'm looking into Oliver Stone's eyes as everyone is giving me a standing ovation — for what, I'm not sure."

There could be more ovations in the future. The Cannes jury, led by Lee, will announce prize winners this weekend and "Flag Day" is scheduled to open in American theaters in late August. Meanwhile, Vogel has sleep to catch up on and bubbly to get out of her hair.

Chris Hewitt • 612-673-4367