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While all eyes are still on the twelfth day of red carpet wonders, the Cannes Film Festival 60th anniversary celebration reached a crescendo on Sunday, May 27 with pomp and nervous smiles waiting for the announcement of top honors: the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm). Besides this and the Best Actor awards, the Festival will conclude with prizes: the Grand Prix, the Jury Prize, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Morning rituals start taking on a familiar pattern and so I usually begin each day getting to the Marche du Film at opening, grab a café au lait and the Festival Daily to see what parties I was not privvy to the evening before and read the buzz on what films are breaking out from the pack. I listen to (eavesdropping while recounting my previous day's events) what others are talking up for the day and all I hear is Scorsese, Scorsese, Scorsese.

It's a beautiful cerulean blue setting between the sky and a hundred yards from the Mediterranean where interested industry and media gathered for the panel discussion on the Future of Media in the digital age.

Tuesday morning I arrive at the center of film universe with a map and the Festival "practical guide" explaining the lay of the land, the do's and don'ts. Outside the Palais des Festivals and the Riviera there's the Festival Zone that includes the Village international - Pantiero as well as the Cinema de la Plage (a huge screen on the beach where I saw HONDO with John Wayne dubbed in French).

This is the big one, Cannes Film Festival. Sixty years of international film premieres, celebrities and the filmmakers making it the number one festival to strive for. For years getting here was always in the back of my mind but there didn't seem to be a feasible way to until lately. Even when I planned my festival strategy for Tribeca just a couple of weeks ago, I had Cannes on my mind and would check their website time and time again. This time, I got a call from someone looking to share a room at Cannes just as the pre screenings started at Tribeca.

Thursday evening was Awards Night and filmmakers gathered to hear the awards announcements and then celebrated in their own way for the rest of the night. This is where I met the most filmmakers in one setting and I made my way through the crowd eyeing their lanyard IDs and then chatting with them about their films and experience at Tribeca Film Festival.

Midweek can turn either way - becoming hotter and tougher or the festival week starts to slow down. What I'm hearing is how hard it is to get tickets to see films that are getting the buzz and I for one am feeling that. There are limited tickets available for Franklin Press holders from now on. You either got to see some of the films that everyone is talking about or you go on to see the next one on the list.

Catching up after a couple of podcasts. I have to be very focused on getting the conversations together during Tribeca Film Festival. Watching the film with the audience and then trying to set up a time afterwards is tricky because no one has the time to afford. Just getting the tickets is sometimes an ordeal but I finally got into the groove. It's just about the time now because I am literally running to catch taxis and trains to get to the press office for tickets and the venues are spread out up and down and across town.

Okay, while it's TGIF for the majority of the working world, I'm just getting started with my workload and finally getting grounded despite the technical kinks that I've been assured are being ironed out. Press screenings and the screening library are available for viewings; however, it defeats the purpose of a film festival and doesn't provide the opportunity to see how the film affects an audience.

I'm finally seeing what's going on here after spending a better part of the first official Tribeca Film Festival day at the Press Office with representatives of the PR firm handling the Festival rather than watching films. I still wasn't on the "list" but I found that there where others who also complained that while they followed the RSVP protocol, they don't get the information about scheduled events or the access. If the access is allowed, it is very limited and controlled all of which I understand because of the complex enormity of this Festival.

Pre festival days often set the tone for the event and sometimes are a precursor of how a festival experience can turn out. There are pre screenings, press screenings, pre festival parties, and the double secret probation hoops you have to jump through on occasion to get on "the list." There was a time when I would try my best to get into an event - pulling all stops, at any cost - but I thought it would be better to do it the right way and I sent in an RSVP email responding that I would like to attend. I figured it was the right thing to do.