Monte Carlo method

CANNES BIZ BUZZ/ Bobby Bedi

After four days, you seek diversion in the form of a day out.

After the second day at Cannes, the one enduring feeling is that of fatigue. Several things happen simultaneously.

You start getting more discerning about the choice of meetings and parties, you start calculating the time it takes to walk the Croisette and you start thinking the day out. It is a ten-day festival, and as I said, after day four, all that you think of is the pain in the legs.

It doesn't stop you from doing meetings, parties and bars, but it hurts nevertheless.

This is roughly the point at which one starts looking for diversion in the shape of a day out of the madness. This can take several forms.

If you have a rich friend, business associate or potential partner who will take you out in a boat to Juan Les Pins or Monaco, you are the luckiest. The sailing is exquisite, the sea is calm and a deep azure, and you get to see a beautiful coastline and some swanky yachts.

If you are close to the end of the festival, it is worth going to Monaco because the Grand Prix is imminent and you get to see practice rounds.

In any case, in Monte Carlo you get to see more Ferraris and Lamborghinis than anywhere in the world. I suspect it has to do with the fact that it is the only city with a Formula One racetrack as its main road. Monte Carlo also had the added attraction of the casinos "" a favourite of some of the more adventurous visitors, especially Indians.

Another good option is to head out into the mountains. You can go to Grasse, the perfume capitol of the world and do a complete tour of a perfumery. It's worth doing once and a matter of pride that two flowers (jasmine and pachouli) come from India (it is also humbling to know that none others do).

From Grasse, you can go to St Paul D'Vence. It's an old gypsy town, incredibly beautiful and in incredibly beautiful surroundings. It has great food and swanky shopping.

The fanciest day out, of course, is a lunch at the Hotel Du Cap, the most expensive hotel in the French Riviera with the added bonus of accepting only cash "" even for room charges. It is far healthier to be someone's guest at the Hotel Du Cap than a host.

If I give the impression that this day out is a real day out, I mislead you. Ideally, you should be on a boat of your business associate, at a villa having lunch with a potential business partner or entertaining someone by taking him or her out to Monte Carlo or Grasse. Serious introductions happen at these villas, boat lunches and day outs.

These intros forge into relationships that lead to major film deals and co-productions and open doors to the big fish. If an Indian film is going to be acquired, financed or co-produced by a studio or mini-studio, it is much more likely to happen on the so called day out. Walking the market is for $10,000-20,000 deals. In any case, walking is tiring.

If you manage to do business on a day out, you have understood Cannes, and can graduate from the wannabes to the real thing.