Wednesday, May 12 On a coffee run to the Peets in San Francisco's own minimall, Potrero Square, I decide to buy a bright yellow mug with a vista of Cannes on its side. An innocent enough purchase (it was on sale), perhaps, but soon to prove decisive. I meant the cup as a consolation prize for not going to the film festival. On second thought, I bring it home as a gift for my girlfriend. Later, I will wonder if this perhaps was a magical mug, like one of those lamps with a genie hidden inside, as it seems to set into motion a change of events that prove to be très français.

Thursday, May 13 I am scheduled to deliver the commencement address at the UC Berkeley graduation for Rhetoric and Film Studies students. In the morning, busy adding the finishing touches to my speech, I quickly scour the Web for news of the film festival. This is how I learn that there's been a bit of a dust-up between jury president Quentin Tarantino and my old pal, the inimitable Tilda Swinton. At the opening press conference to introduce the jury, an Asian journalist had challenged Tarantino by asking how he felt to hear that her country's own cinema was dying on the vine, yet the only thing showing in the theaters was his own Kill Bill: Vol. 2. If she expected sympathy, she was quickly corrected as Tarantino launched into an attack on auteurist cinema and a defense of star-system industrial product as produced (his examples) by Hollywood, Bollywood, and Hong Kong. "I waited until the press conference was nearly over, because I was tired and not planning on saying anything," Swinton told me in recounting the episode later. She then rebutted Tarantino's call to arms for Hollywood style values and stars, lobbying for a recognition of films other than the industrial model and supporting national cinemas with aesthetic styles and budgetary norms that lie outside the Hollywood/Bollywood/Hong Kong axis of entertainment (ooops, my term, not hers). She thought it was a minor addendum, but the British press soon turned it into a major Anglo-American incident and made Swinton the poster girl of UK cinema. Anyway, at that time on Thursday, I was busy with graduation and a good-bye party (I'm leaving Berkeley for UC-Santa Cruz) and not yet aware of what had transpired.

Friday, May 14 Relaxing in bed with a morning espresso and a pile of newspapers, I begin to fume as I read A.O. Scott's report from Cannes. No, it's not anything he said. It was just the unfairness of it all: he was there, and I was not. He was about to see all the new films by directors I know or passionately care about, and in many cases have written about, and I was not. I began to mutter obscenities. My girlfriend Mary, enjoying her own morning java out of the new Cannes mug, had a brainstorm: go! I laughed at her naiveté. No ticket, no place to stay, no credentials. What was she thinking? She was thinking, as it transpired, of action. She popped up to check airfares: the cheapest online ticket she could find was $8135. Hmmm, outside my range. I was ready to give up and go back to bed, but she wasn't. She called United, determined to use our frequent flyer mileage even though I'd informed her haughtily that those seats are always gone, booked up ten or eleven months in advance. On the phone with the ticket agent, she got the same answer. Until ... "oh, wait a minute, someone's just canceled via Frankfurt for tomorrow. Do you want it?" Yes, please. I frantically send e-mails to everyone I know in Cannes looking for a spare bed. I send an obsequious e-mail to the festival's press office pleading for credentials. In French, no less (merci, Mary). And I pack my suitcase.

Saturday, May 15 I'm on a Lufthansa (thank you, United partners program) flight to Frankfurt. With a transfer to Nice, I should arrive in Cannes, with luck, one hour before the screening of Argentine director Lucrecia Martel's new film, La Niña Santa. My friend Marie-Pierre Macia (yes, formerly of San Francisco) has phoned to assure me she's holding a ticket for me to it. So I settle into my seat, eat my carry-on dinner, take my sleeping pill, and get my last night's sleep.

Sunday, May 16 Marie-Pierre and I reconnoiter as planned outside the Noga Hilton hotel and head for the Palais to see La Niña Santa. I am dazzled by my good luck. It's really exciting to be there for this moment: Martel is the first Argentine woman ever to show in competition and her producer Lita Stantic has never had a film accepted into Competition before. Hooray, the film is well received, especially by me; I happily sink into its seemingly unstructured narrative that gradually tightens around its characters like a slo-mo noose. As the end credits roll and the crowd starts to applaud, I notice a figure approaching Martel from the other side of the theater: it's Pedro Almodovar, clapping loudly. Then I remember that Almodovar (whose Bad Education opened Cannes on Wednesday) was the executive producer of her film. He stands facing Martel, clapping long and hard, ensuring that the whole audience will give her the standing ovation that she deserves, determined to use his celebrity to ensure that she receives her due. It's a touching moment, this passing of the baton – from Spain to Argentina, man to woman, older generation to the new kindred spirit – and, to me, already worth the trip.

Afterward, I follow them back to their hotel to congratulate Lucrecia in person. I'd met her when she came to Telluride and Toronto with La Cienaga, her first film, and published a profile of her in the New York Times. I'd met Lita back in 1986 in Havana, then spent time with her in Buenos Aires in 1987 when the Sundance Film festival sent me there to curate a tribute to Argentine cinema since the coming of democracy. Back then, she was producing Maria Luisa Bemberg's films. She went on to direct a film of her own about Argentina's "disappeared" and the toll on their nearest and dearest, drawn from her own experience. Now, in recent years, she'd become the shepherd of a new generation. In the Times, I'd called her the "madrina" of the new Argentine cinema. Now here she was, going where even La Bemberg had never been, up the steps of the Palais. Totally historic. We toast their success.

Popping into the bar, I run smack into HBO Films' secret treasure, Maud Nadler, the commissioning editor who should be famous for investing in Stranger Inside, Real Women Have Curves, American Splendor, and Maria Full of Grace, all outstanding contributions to U.S. indie cinema. To my surprise, it turns out she backed La Niña Santa, too. Another success! She and her boss Colin Callender are doing better than any studio in America at nurturing new talent and finding an audience for edgy work. May they long continue! In a corner of the bar, Dennis O'Connor of HBO Films and Jeff Hill of IHOP (International House of Publicity) are planning strategy already. Ah, what a great first day. If only I could "get credentialled," life would be perfect.

Instead, I head back to the hotel. A good friend with a luxury suite has offered me a place to crash. I get my own key, room-service privileges, and I'm amused by the roll-out bed delivered by the hotel staff. It makes me feel like a kid on a sleep-over. I've got a good feeling about this week.

Monday, May 17 I've sent the Press Office another e-mail requesting a press pass and apologizing for my late arrival and lack of pre-arranged credentials. Naturally, it gets me nowhere. They refuse to consider my request until they have a faxed letter from the Bay Guardian editor. Unfortunately, she'd been away for the weekend and now it's about 2 a.m. San Francisco time. No fax will be arriving any time soon. I try to get in to their office to discuss this like grown-ups, but predictably, without any credentials, I am not allowed to set foot inside the Palais. Day 1, Catch 22.

The Cannes Film Festival is a brutal combination of a three-ring circus, a rock concert, and a fraternity rush week. Right, with movies. But, really, it's hard to ignore the trade-show aspect as people hustle each other left and right, size everybody according to invisible criteria, and then rush off to make a deal or an interview or a drink or a screening or a meeting or ... a late-night assignation. And here I am, the concert in full swing, with no backstage pass.

Today, everyone is in a lather over Fahrenheit 9/11. I've already missed the press screening. This afternoon is the last official screening, but how to get in? I decide to walk over to the Palais and join the pathetic throng of civilians without tickets. I'm thinking: this is probably good for me. Stripped of my press privileges, I have to see how the other half lives, and it's not pretty. Consider the ritual outside the Palais that's rarely reported, since all the press enters by another door and anyone with official tickets gets ceremoniously ushered out of harm's way. The ritual? An unruly crowd of commoners holding up tiny signs begging for tickets, stopping everybody with pleas: "Extra ticket? De plus?" Being homeless at the Cannes Film Festival means being ticketless, and there we are in the Palais version of the street median, holding our signs and hoping for mercy.

Well, not quite. I can't bring myself to hold up a sign. I decide to give it 15 minutes. If I'm meant to see Michael Moore's film, some miracle will intervene; if not, I'll go look for a café. Suddenly, I hear a voice from above: "Ruby, do you need a ticket for this?" Shaking myself out of my reverie, I realize that my personal deus ex machina is actually Tom Bernard, co-exec of Sony Pictures Classics (not this film's distributor), who is casually bicycling by in his shorts, from the back pocket of which he fishes out a crumpled ticket and hands it to me. "Enjoy," he says, and bikes off. Stunned, the envy of all around me, I turn and enter the Palais.

Inside, another wonderfully tacky Cannes convention that's little reported: we early arrivals sit dutifully in our assigned seats watching the screen, where a live feed from the stairs we've just mounted ourselves shows us our betters, the celebrities who know better than to come early, preening on the red carpet, signing autographs, and being photographed. Actually, it's fun. We get to see who knows how to do it and who doesn't. Some of them are very good, some pitiful. We get to see them mount the stairs. We wait and wait for Michael Moore to arrive. He's late, late for his own screening. He knows how to build excitement. Finally, the familiar loping walk and he arrives, with wife and entourage, and he and Harvey meet and greet in bearhug style. We, waiting for their film, can only wait some more. Mike waves to the crowd, they cheer. He mounts the stairs, shakes hands with the festival brass, then goes back and waves again. Grandly, like an emperor at a coronation, a supreme leader in this little cinematic kingdom. They roar their approval again. Part of the kitschy ritual is that the live-feed camera follows them through the fourth wall: they're up on screen, cheered, they're in the lobby, and then, wow, they're hear among us, and we cheer, and our cheers inside the Palais fuse with the sound from the speakers, and we're in surround sound in Cannes, and it's show time. No introduction, never. No question and answer sessions after the films, either. No separate box for the celebs, who sit down with the rest of us.

The film plays, and the audience is rapt. It's mostly a French audience, not the international press of the screenings I can't get into. They hang on every word. I want it to be good so much that I'm nervous; it's good, too, but not perfect. There will be months to talk about the film this summer, so here let me just talk about the applause. A standing ovation goes on and on. How long? I guessed twenty minutes, others guessed ten or thirty. But keep in mind it might not have been so long as all that if Moore, master showman, hadn't kept it going. All by himself. Standing, aw-shucksing, smiling for the camera, and then when it began to falter a bit, clapping himself to rev it up again, even finally shouting out soundlessly to the crowd. Read my lips: "Bush out." It was a film screening turned political rally, this first moment of the world seeing his film, and everyone came out into the light, hoping it can work, hoping finally the American public will see Bush for the evildoer that he is. Well, maybe.

In the meantime, I'm off to look for a cell phone. I went to the shop this morning, but evidently on Mondays it doesn't open until 3 p.m. And without a cell phone, forget finding anybody, forget dinners, forget locating tickets. It used to be either a matter of chance or military-precision planning. Now, it's just a game of getting a message through the cellular overload to the right friend or contact. My first Cannes, I rented a cell phone; then the bill came, hundreds of dollars. Never again. So two years ago, I bought one, the Orange brand, which runs on cards that can be purchased at most any Tabac (until, as they will mid-festival, they run out). But I wasn't planning on coming to Cannes, so I'd already lent my phone to a friend. No choice now but to wait until late afternoon, buy a new phone, find a Tabac with Orange cards in stock, and race back to the hotel to charge it and get hooked up.

I do, I find some friends, have dinner, and start to catch up on gossip. It's on the terrace of the Grand Hotel late every night that lots of the Toronto Film Festival folks gather, so I head over to hear their opinions. Noah Cowan, who's been named the festival's new co-director, is there. I watch him hold court and graciously deal with those who approach to congratulate him; he's relaxed and not taking it seriously, but I'm struck by how medieval these rituals are and how ruled by ceremony Cannes really is. I talk with Giovana Fulvi, who programs Asian films for Toronto, and we share rumors about 2046. It's nearly 2 am by the time I head back to crash, laughing to think that home in San Francisco, I'm in bed by 10. Is it the jet lag, or the Cannes effect? Back at the hotel, the gang in "my" suite is up watching reruns of the day's press conferences and red-carpet arrivals. We order chamomile tea and laugh.

Tuesday, May 18 Another sunny day on the Riviera, and still no press pass. I send another e-mail to the mysterious unattainable press office, but I'm beginning to feel trapped in a Kafka tale. Then, an e-mail request arrives from my editor at The Guardian, the London one. Did I see Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday? And if so, will I please write an article by the end of the afternoon for the next day's paper? And can their photographer come to take a picture of me for this imagined American-in-Cannes piece? Well, but of course. Oh, I love journalism, but there goes my day. I spend most of it on the keyboard, pounding out my impressions of this year's Cannes and how American-friendly it seems to be. I take a break only to be photographed, in front of one of the huge Cannes festival posters that features the shadowy silhouette of Marilyn, circa The Seven Year Itch, peeking out from between the letters. High art, sure. As long as lots of flesh accompanies it. The gender politics of the Cannes Film Festival are about half a century out of date, and the men who frequent this place like it just fine like that.

And the politics are just as retro. The town of Cannes is actually deep in the heart of LePen country, where right-wing attitudes prevail and where a trip up into the hills offers a view of anti-immigrant graffiti. This year, with the threat of militant action from the French arts workers hanging over the Cannes festival and vowing to shut it down (as they did the Avignon festival last summer), the tension was palpable. For Americans by now indoctrinated into this administration's phony system of terror alerts, it was odd to be plunged back into a politics of strikers and police lines. Lovely nostalgia, really. Squadrons of French police massed around the Palais, vans parked along the side streets with men on the ready, and a somewhat feeble line of marchers coalescing now and then to shout slogans in the street. It didn't amount to much in the end. Instead, the movie people seemed more put out by the striking hotel workers. You had to see the irony in there being no room service or hot water at one of the five star hotels so coveted by festivalgoers. Harness that rage, and you'd have a movement.

Instead, I have lunch. Thanks to cell phone magic, I end up in a pleasant bistro with two of my favorite Toronto Film Festival programmers, Gaylene Gould who runs Planet Africa and Diana Sanchez, who selects the Latin American films. They fill me in on what I've missed so far, what films to see, which to skip. It's amazing how fast it's possible to get up to speed here. They promise to see me at the Brazilian party that night.

It's hard to tell sometimes at Cannes whether the films are the excuse for the parties or the other way around. Marcus Hu, Strand co-exec and sometime San Franciscan, has plans to go to the Brazilian party later that night, along with the Sundance Festival's John Cooper. As 10 p.m. approaches, I track Cooper down at a dinner and join them and a posse of friends. We head for the beach and the Festival del Rio party. It's such a zoo that I immediately want to flee, but of course, I can't: these parties are the lifeblood of Cannes, where you get the gossip and opinions on the films, the filmmakers, and everyone's foibles. Folks are dancing, drinking, talking. Besides, there's the obvious: you don't need any credentials to get into the parties, just an invitation. (Or, in this case, not even: the inimitable Gabrielle Free, from the Toronto Film Festival, greases the wheels at the entrance for us.) Even as we arrive, other friends are already leaving. I hunt around and find filmmaker Jonathan Nossiter sitting on the sand, chatting with someone who turns out to be one of the producers of his Mondovino so I try to find out how I can catch up and if it might be showing again anywhere that an uncredentialled peon might be able to get in to see it.

Then it's off to the next clutch of familiar faces. Jytte Jensen and Mary Lea Bandy, both from New York's Museum of Modern Art, are talking to the czarina of Brazilian cinema, Lucy Barreto. By now it's past midnight. In Cannes time, that's roughly equivalent to four in the afternoon; there are hours to go before we sleep. Indeed, it's at this precise moment that my fortunes changes. Bandy spots Cannes head Thierry Fremaux in the crowd, making his rounds, and buttonholes him on my behalf. Can't he intercede to get me a press pass? She promises to deliver my documentation to his office the next day and he promises to facilitate its processing. I can't believe my luck. I also can't believe this will work.

Wednesday, May 19 It's been a week since the magical Cannes cup at Peets and now here I am, sitting within the landscape pictured on its side. I need coffee more than ever. My days are confused now. Without sleep, it's hard to keep them apart. So I'll try to keep this accurate, but the films are swimming in my head now, and so are the parties, and the people, so please be kind.

It didn't help to be pick-pocketed. It happened this afternoon within twenty minutes of leaving the Palais following the screening of The House of Flying Daggers, the stunning new Zhang Yimou martial-arts epic with a Romeo and Juliet plot thrown in. My friend Tony Safford had phoned to say he had an extra ticket. I came out of there so euphoric that I must have let down my guard, or was it my blind obsession with making my new cell phone work? Whatever, my peripheral vision obviously didn't work. Now, no credit cards, no money. And still, no credentials.

Wandering hopelessly, I miraculously run into my pal Marie-Pierre Macia. We haven't had an actual conversation or even seen each other since the moment of my arrival. This is wonderful luck. She proposes lunch, and treats me, and we get caught up over lunch and relax. It's a rare moment of peace in the middle of madness, and we relish it.

Everyone has been telling me to go to the police station to report the theft, so I finally hike across Cannes on my thankless pilgrimage. Finally, I find headquarters and take my place on the wooden benches with a subdued crowd of petitioners, sitting opposite a frosted-glass door with lettering out of an antiquated movie: Aid for Victims of Crime (in French, of course). I wait interminably, then tell the official at the front desk that I just don't have time to report my crime. I'm heading back when my phone magically rings: Mary Lea Bandy's intervention has worked, my credentials will be ready by 6 p.m. Oh, happy day. I might actually be able to see some films now. I head to the Palais. More complications, more arguing in French (thank you, Juliette). Finally, incredibly, I get my pass. It's blue. In Cannes, that's almost as low as you can go. The press office has taken five days and now insulted me in the bargain, but I can't say I didn't get a pass. Oh well, at least now I can enter the sacred halls of the Palais, if only to check my e-mail.

Maggie Cheung arrives from Paris today and a few of us are taking her to dinner to celebrate. Our plans are nearly spoiled by the Hong Kong press: a photographer has staked out the back of her hotel and follows us for blocks, flashing pictures, even invading the restaurant in the middle of the meal. Maggie is sick of it: in Hong Kong, she's pursued mercilessly. In France, except for Cannes, she gets to live her life and be left alone. I wonder if that will still be true after this festival and her starring role in the French film by her former husband, Olivier Assayas.

Stopping by the hotel later that evening, I run into fashion maven Jerry Stafford, dashing by with tickets to The Motorcycle Diaries dinner. Would I like to go? But of course! So it's off to the beach again for a full-tilt sit-down dinner in the company of Walter Salles, Gael García Bernal, and a few hundred of their closest friends. We find Tilda Swinton there, holding court at one end of the room, and we compare notes on our days. Swinton is on the jury, so I have to be a respectful friend and suppress the urge to pump her for her opinions of the films. But that doesn't mean I can't tell her mine! I pay my respects to one of the producers, former Sundance staffer Rebecca Yeldham. Radiant with the film's reception at Cannes, she tells me they're heading to Cuba in June to show the film in the company of Che's youthful road companion, octogenarian Alberto Granado (now a doctor in Cuba, as the gloriously gorgeous film makes clear in its final documentary scene). Granado's presence at Cannes has caused a sensation – unlike at the film's world premiere at Sundance this past winter, when the U.S. refused to issue him a visa. Oh, there are so many threats to Homeland Security. It's a relief to be in a country where the rules are different, where people can think for themselves because they aren't being terrorized by their own government under the guise of terror-prevention.

Before the night is over, I've heard new rumors about Wong Kar-wai. His much-anticipated, longed-for, mysterious 2046 has still not arrived. I decide to call my old friend Norman Wang, now based back in Hong Kong and helping out here with 2046. What's happening? It's true: the morning press screening and early public screening for tomorrow have both been canceled. Never before has a film failed to arrive in time for its Cannes premiere. The only screenings will be a simultaneous public screening and press screening at 7 and 7:30 p.m. And there are no tickets to be had, anywhere, for the public screening. And the press screening will be so jammed with white and pink pass-holders that I'll never get in. I'm morose: so near and yet so far. But Norman's happy. Wong Kar-wai has made his flight, he's on the plane, and so is the film. Norman's off to have a drink.

Thursday, May 20 Happy birthday, dad. My father would have turned 82 today if he were still alive. As for me, I'm amazed I even know the date. I've slept in, waking up finally to the sound of rock 'n' roll blasting from next door. My celebrity patroness (no, I won't say who) is dancing around to the Smiths to wake up this morning, get the blood flowing. She explains that she's being picked up in half an hour for breakfast on the Jackie O boat. Huh? I thought she was dead? Well, evidently it was her boat when she was alive and sailing the ocean as Mrs. Onassis. Now, it seems, David Tang, Hong Kong titan, has chartered the fabled ship for the duration of the film festival and is serving breakfast at 10. Nobly, I sacrifice my morning schedule to escort her aboard.

It doesn't take long to realize my error. I hadn't exactly thought this through. To put it mildly, I'm not a creature of the open sea. In fact, I can barely swim. Furthermore, I've inherited my late mother's propensity for anxiety. I used to say, in despair, that she could find the cloud outside any silver lining. Now it's a case of my mother, my self. Were Jews made to ride in boats? I suspect not. The cause of my meltdown is the tiny inflatable quasi-boat that appears tardily at the dock to ferry us out to the ship. A boy named Jefferson is coming along, too. All aboard. Why am I the only one who cares that there are no life preservers? Zoom, across the water we go with our Aussie sailors for protection. We three think the mothership is just offshore. The Aussies know better. She's way out, around the point, and then some. The wind is whipping the water into waves and the boat is hydrofoiling across them. By the time we arrive, I'm green around the gills and we only have twenty minutes for breakfast if we want to make the morning screening.

The boat is gorgeous. Built in 1929, she's Cunard-esque in her proportions and decor, all polished wood and brass, period details intact. Clearly anyone who couldn't afford to keep this boat in pristine condition has never owned her. And the service is better than any joint on the Croisette. Fresh-squeezed orange juice? Absolutely. Espresso? Coming right up. And there's our host, resplendent in white brocade pyjamas with bright red piping and the lettering on the pocket: Do Not Disturb. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, what a shame that our 19 minutes are up and it's time to go. On the way back, pressed for time, the hydrofoiling gets worse and I get tenser and tenser. Wrong reaction, it turns out; we hit a wave and I fall, into the bottom of the boat luckily, not into the briny depths. I hit my head and have a goose-egg by evening. Right now, writing these words, I can still feel it right at my hairline. I have headaches for days. But is it the fall, or the champagne?

On to the movies. Innocence, the Japanese anime with a brain, is interesting but, for me, not memorable. I've never developed a taste for manga drawing. Something about the quality of the line puts me off. Still, Innocence has fun with detective genre conventions and packs a nice punch in the man/machine/cyborg sweepstakes. Why did I come to this screening? On the way out, I run into a film critic I know who is just on the verge of heading to the press office to return his ticket to the black-tie screening of 2046. He's going to the press screening instead. I beg, I plead, I grovel, and then, dear reader, I get his ticket.

It's WKW time at last. Everyone's at a fever pitch. Into the Palais we go, all lacquered up for the march up the red carpet, and then the magic starts. The film is gorgeous, of course, and moody and magical, and romantic to the core, and full of heartbreak, and great songs on the soundtrack, and beautiful actresses on screen ... but no Maggie. To everyone's shock, she's no longer in the film. A good sport, she sits in the section reserved for the cast and WKW. When they rise at the end for the applause, she stays seated and enthusiastically claps with the rest of us. But what an odd moment it is. Further, the WKW magic may be as intact as ever, but 2046 makes even less sense than usual. Does that matter? Of course not. I'd go see it five more times anyway. But something about it feels under- or over-edited, and for days, everyone will be debating its status and whether of not it will get the Palme d'Or. "How can you give the Palme to a film that's not finished?" sneers one pundit. But how can the jury not give a prize to WKW? For the first time, I don't envy Swinton, Tarantino, or my colleague, the Finnish critic and festival director and Telluride regular, Peter Von Bagh.

What I wish I'd said to WKW that night, if it hadn't seemed so insanely presumptuous? I wanted to tell him of the kinship I felt, for I share the habit of procrastination as a drug, the feeling of holding out, like a panther awaiting its prey, avoiding at all costs the drudgery of the accountant's life, the bank-teller's day, the refusal of work as routine, the renunciation of work as a calibrated schedule that runs like the railroad with all the station stops announced in advance. Instead, ever the novitiate, I insist on discovery as the essential part of the process, the hope of being surprised, the notion that a better idea is just around the corner if only the ink doesn't have to dry just yet, the faith that the shape of the film or the article will reveal itself to us if we give it all more time, the suspicion that the deadline is our enemy because it is final, and it will kill off the next version, and the version after that. So I put myself in harm's way over and over with this way of working: it invites accidents and burglaries, ideas that break in through a window left open, like a dreamed-of but unexpected visitor that steps through a door left ajar. This way of working summons the ghost in the machine to come out and play. Ah, but the world can be unforgiving, and mixed with the praise, I see the knives being drawn, and wince in pain.

Later, I pop into the cast and crew screening for Olivier Assayas and his film, Clean, in which Maggie Cheung stars and in which she'll sing. I'm immediately introduced to fellow San Franciscan David Roback, who appears briefly in the film as Bay-Area music producer and is not only responsible for much of the music but is now working with Cheung on additional songs for the soundtrack release. (Clean also has a cameo by Tricky and a sliver of a set by Emily Haines and Metric, but it's by no stretch of intention or imagination a rock 'n' roll movie; Allison Anders has nothing to worry about here.) The Canadian producers are giddy with excitement: we'd last met for dinner at Foreign Cinema, when they'd all come to San Francisco to shoot the film's final scene. Assayas has strong Canadian ties from his friendships with Atom Egoyan and Arsinee Khanjian, so it's not surprising to find Torontonian Don McKellar in the cast.

Assayas had been gallant: he'd surrendered up his own press screening slot that evening and switched to the morning instead, so that WKW could take his time. It was ironic: Maggie Cheung is on screen nearly every minute in Clean, but for hardly a frame or two in 2046.

Next, it's on to the 2046 party, a very hot ticket. I wonder if Cheung will be there, and she is. Ever elegant, she arrives well after midnight: stealing no limelight from the film's evident stars, but not shirking her connection either. There's immediately a tumult of recognition, flashes, and that kind of moment that's inevitable when people who know all about each other have to meet in the glare of publicity. Everyone's there at a corner table. Tony Leung rises, beaming. The actresses move to make room for her. WKW presides, wearing his dark shades, as always. I tell him that 2046 is gorgeous. "We just sold it two minutes ago," he confides. Later that night, Fortissimo brass tell me it's not true. Who to believe? Another insider will tell me, the next day, that the sale of In The Mood For Love to USA Films carried a first option for the next movie, with USA allowed to match any bid unless it was over $3.5 million. The USA option transferred to Focus Films, which presumably will now end up automatically with 2046 since there's not much impetus for other companies to bid up the price. Or is there? After years of watching negotiations from outside, I still don't get it. That's why I read Variety. And why I don't write for them!

Looking around the room, I suddenly spot Tilda on the dance floor with .... Quentin Tarantino? By morning, this would be known as the kiss-and-make-up rhumba. I suspect a case of foxhole syndrome, the jury bonding over their hardships and setting differences aside. And I doubt it was a rhumba anyway. But I edge over to greet Tilda, and she decides at that moment to introduce me to Tarantino. "B. Ruby Rich?" he gushes, wide-eyed, and professes himself a fan. Next thing I know, I'm dancing with QT. Well, for a minute. Flocks of babes are eager to cut in and I'm happy to surrender the position. Up close, I finally understand the puppy-dog persona. Extrapolating from evidence on screen, I'd had trouble believing it, given the darkness of his imagination. He's a film geek, a teenager in a man's body, but he seems to be enjoying this all wildly and his enthusiasm is disarming. I shake my head and head back to the WKW table to say goodnight. It's 2 am and I want to sleep by 3.

Friday, May 21 Up bright and early for a screening of The Life And Death of Peter Sellars, and I wish I weren't. I don't like it any better than I'd expected to. Geoffrey Rush has never been my favorite actor. My least favorite, maybe. I think he overplays his hand all the time, and here he just chews up the scenery. And I can't bear Emily Watson either. Charlize Theron, though, is lovely in the role of Brett Ekland – after Ekland, reacting to the news of her casting, complained that she was all wrong for the part and anyway was too old to play her. Jerry Stafford told me the story, laughing: poor thing, he thought, she must have seen Theron in Monster and nothing else, and panicked. As it is, Stephen Hopkins relies on impersonation so much to drive the film that I began wishing he had just gone whole hog for the comedic and cast Mike Myers instead.

Over lunch, my cell phone rings. It's Nick James, editor-in-chief of Sight & Sound where I've just published a feature on Kill Bill: Vol. 2. "I heard you got pick-pocketed," he says. "Did you lose your wallet?" It seems a friend of his just got robbed this morning, and headed over to a police outpost behind the Palais, there expressly to deal with the rise of crime during the festival. This is no joke: the New York Times' A.O. Scott was burgled in his hotel room at the Sofitel (site of a suspicious number of these crimes over the years, it seems to me), while he slept, and relieved of his laptop and money and everything else of value. I feel lucky to have only lost my wallet, and tell Nick as much. "But the police have it," he informs me. His friend had gone to see if hers had been found, and when she inquired, she was asked: "Are you Ruby Rich?" She rang Nick because she remembered he knew me, he rang me, and a few hours later I was waiting in the sun behind the Palais for the policeman in charge of found objects to return from lunch. Of course, the money and half the credit cards (all canceled by now, anyway) were gone, but I was inexplicably delighted to see my California drivers license and SFMOMA membership card again.

That night, it's the world premiere of Clean and a party afterward. I'm supposed to be having dinner with Lucretia Martel and want to praise La Niña Santa to her, in person, but our plans go awry and she has to be elsewhere early, I later. Nobody seems to have a ticket to this party, and calling around to try to arrange them, I run out of minutes in my once-handy Orange phone. I'm cut off till morning unless somebody calls me. That's a glory of French cell phones: you don't pay for incoming minutes. Own the phone, and all the world can call you. If they can afford to, that is, since to compensate the French ratchet up the cost of calling cell phones from land lines to the level of what long-distance charges used to be like, two decades ago. It's a French party for a French film, and the security is so intense that I can't even get through to congratulate Olivier or Maggie. I give up and try to get back to the hotel, but the party's outside of town and there's no taxi line waiting, just private cars standing by for their masters. I team up with an equally desperate guy who turns out to be an editor for Marie Claire, the French edition. We throw ourselves in front of a cab speeding by; ah, my New York City training still comes in handy. As we speed toward town, I realize I've got a second wind. It's my last night. What the hell, I head for the patio of the Grand Hotel, where the Toronto Film Festival folks had told me they planned to gather.

By the time I arrive, most of the tables are empty. But, happy day, I spy my favorite Canadian critic, Brian Johnson, in late-night conversation with the Toronto Festival's czarina of publicity and friend to the press, Gabrielle Free. Whatever conspiracy they're hatching, they abandon it to welcome me. Gab offers to buy me a drink, but the bar is closed. We chat happily until the waiter waves us all away, trading stories and opinions and comparing notes. It's the great Cannes pastime and the way memories are made forever: away from the cameras, celebrities, and officialdom, a couple of working stiffs talking shop in the late-night breezes of the Riviera. Life is good. Gab and Brian walk me back to the hotel and I got to bed. It's 4 am.

Saturday, May 22 My last morning. The jury is off to be sequestered at a nearby chateau, ordered not even to bring their cell phones. With hardly a wink of sleep, I'm up to savor my final morning. I see Tilda Swinton heading to her jury car and tell her where all counting on her good taste. She looks prepared, energetic, and tense. She skipped the parties, she says, to get a good night's sleep.

I pack my bags and saunter around town. And I decide for one last time to try calling Kay Armitage, whose leave of absence two years ago had given me the wondrous opportunity of becoming a Toronto International Film Festival curator for a season. I'm in luck: we meet on the next block in five minutes and settle in for a last lunch, a last dish in both sense of the word, before I head to the airport. It's the perfect conclusion. While I nibble at my marinated salmon salad, my final south-of-France meal, passersby stop to talk, and stay to eat. There's Rachel Rosen, formerly San Francisco, now the power behind the L.A. Indie Fest. And there's Joanna Ney of the New York Film Festival, who fills me in on this year's committee. Reluctantly, I realize I have to go. It's hard to break away before the awards ceremony and jury decisions, but my airline luck had only gone so far – I couldn't get a seat out of France at all, so I've bought a ticket on the cheap EasyJet airline to London, and will spend the evening with old friends before I fly home from Heathrow the next day.

At the Nice airport, crowds of early departers are busily playing guessing games. One swears he heard about a fax that was filched and reported that Innocence won the Palme d'Or. We're all shocked, but it turns out to be a false alarm. I climb on board and close my eyes; when I open them, I'm in London. Charles Gant from my favorite trashy paper, Heat, offers to share a taxi, and I happily accept. He even knows the friends I'm en route to see: filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien and his partner Mark Nash, curator and now an administrator at St. Martin's School of Art. I'm dying to see their fabulous new flat, which I've already read about in The Guardian. It's all I expected and more: glass walls, customized furniture, and a mid-century modern building just down-at-the-heels enough to have been affordable, given that it's only a few steps from Russell Square, one of my favorite spots in all of London, and recently restored.

We haven't seen each other in nearly two years, not since the landmark Yerba Buena exhibition of Isaac's work, and it's such fun catching up. Mark jumps on line and tracks down the winners at Cannes in almost real time. I am so excited that Maggie Cheung has won for best actress! And pleased about Fahrenheit 9/11. And shocked that 2046 has won nothing, leaving WKW to go home empty handed. And sad that Lucrecia Martel wasn't rewarded for the intense originality of La Niña Santa, though she's young and she'll be back again and get what's due her, I'm sure. Far from the high-stakes games of Cannes, we three go to dinner at some fabulous posh restaurant, trade stories, and toast two decades of friendship with champagne. In the morning, I'll head out to Heathrow and back home to the Bay.

Sunday morning, May 23 A fatal flaw, almost. Mark drives me to Paddington Station so I can catch the express train to Heathrow and supervises my buying my ticket from the machine, just to make sure this American abroad doesn't encounter difficulties. Then, alas, he leaves. I wander onto the platform and get on the train. My brain is full of Cannes and the adventure of going this way, on a lark, with no planning or preparation, and I'm marveling at how well everything's gone and how immensely lucky I am. The universe has taken care of me, and life is good. I am so happy in my ruminations that I hardly notice the train pull out of the station. Then the announcement comes: "the next stop will be Reading Station, and then stopping at ...." What? I turned to the elderly couple next to me and questioned them, since I thought this was supposed to go express to Heathrow. Their dismay was apparent. I was on the wrong train.

Now home in San Francisco again, I can laugh. But I can assure you that, with 95 minutes till flight departure, I was not a happy passenger. This train onto which I had stumbled with nary a glance was headed in the opposite direction, and wouldn't hit its first stop for 20 minutes. Suddenly I had a gang of new friends. The train manager called up the Reading station-master and arranged for a taxi to be waiting, even checking on the price for me since "you'll pay a Queen's ransom for that cab!" I am endlessly apologetic. "Only an American," I say, "from a country that's destroyed its rail system, would get onto a train without looking or asking for its destination." Everyone is amused. It's my turn to be panicked. At Reading, the station-master is waiting, and though he walks me through his domain at a stroll, I practice patience and optimism. There's the cab and we're off to Heathrow. Through Sunday afternoon traffic. The driver lets me use his cell phone to call the airport, and I learn that if I don't arrive at the ticket counter by 2 p.m. sharp (45 minutes prior to flight time), I can't board. I ask the driver how long it will take to get there, and he assures me that 30 minutes will suffice. It is 1:35 p.m. I hold my breath.