1 Cannes Diary 2011: 3,544 words Tuesday, May 10 Arriving for my fourth trip to the 64th Cannes Film Festival on the Cote d'Azur, I am picked up by Sebastian, my Brad Pitt look-a-like driver. We head to the Carlton Hotel on the Coisette smack in the middle of the action. The festival is the world's most prestigious twelve day convention of cinema, giving us the perfect excuse to slip on an evening gown nightly, strut our stuff on the red carpet, network till dawn with endless flashbulbs in our face and chat with reporters posing as friends. I fall into that category of overdressed film aficionado, fan and friend with a pencil. Wednesday, May 11 I am flying down the Carlton's stairwell in a Dennis Basso spectacular sequined and fur get-up overloaded with mother's inherited diamonds and head to Woody Allen's premiere of "Midnight in Paris". I accidentally crash into Barry Levinson coming from a financial meeting on Gotti:Three Generations" that he'll be filming in New York this winter with John Travolta as John Gotti, Jr. and Al Pacino as his mentor. Three years ago Barry's "What Just Happened" starring Robert De Niro, this year's jury president, closed the festival. Barry walks me to the paparazzi infested Palais. He has no tuxedo or tickets for tonight. I tell him to meet me at the dinner and Sony Classics' distributors Michael Barker and Tom Bernard will get him in. My date Jean Pigozzi arrives by boat from his villa. There's total Woody-mania on the red carpet. Woody is very calm. This is his 42nd film and his first filmed in Paris. It's about the struggle to deal with the present while romanticizing the past. Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams with her real-life lover Michael Sheen, Adrien Brody, starlet Lea Seydoux and Woody climb the mythic red steps and are greeted by festival director Thierry Fremaux and president Gilles Jacob, who receive every actor every evening in the exact same spot. Notably absent are French First Lady Carla Bruni, wh