The Croisette is coursing with cash. As detailed by a proper journalist over at BBC News, Quentin Tarantino is in town, blabbing about the main competition. But underneath the glitz, glamour and high art aspirations, money feeds the festival. And a good deal of dedication.

Strolling along under rain-heavy clouds, trying to enjoy the seaside, the lads from Brighton's Modern Life must feel right at home. They're here to sell two movies: Left For Dead, pitched by director Ross Boyask as "the first ever English martial arts hardcore action movie", and The Johnna Man, which helmer Kevin Akehurst calls "a romantic comedy for the cynic". Both shot on a shoestring on the South Coast whenever the producers - Phil Hobden and Adrian Foiadelli respectively - could find the funds, they're now finished and available for sale in the Cannes Market, the home of European film biz wheeling and dealing since 1961. Full of enthusiasm and vigor - as opposed to all-too-common Cannes cynicism and fatigue - the Modern Life team are inspirational, taking time out from their day jobs to try and make it in movies. Passionate about their pictures, they are fans as well as filmmakers and I'll be catching up with them throughout the festival, to see what the endless meetings and marketing amount to and - frankly - because I owe them a beer (I didn't have any money on me, all right?).

Another passionate person, although already more than well-established in the industry, is Sandra Hebron, Artistic Director of the Times BFI London Film Festival, who is out here a for cinematic endurance test, "scouting for films that we could screen". During 12 days she can expect to watch between 50 and 60, as well as conduct a stream of meetings with filmmakers and sales agents (who flog films and help decide how they're distributed), seeing which movies may make the move to London in October.

Me, I'm hoping to squeeze in 10, in between capturing Cannes on camera. The quality of festival opener Bad Education bodes well. Director Pedro Almodóvar has created a typically visually flamboyant, Hitchcockian noir, with its themes of abuse and the pull of the past making for oppressive yet impressive viewing. The word among the hacks at Premier PR's annual drink-in (free beer may be a theme of these articles) is that Park Chan-wook's revenge thriller Old Boy is terrific, while another Eastern treasure is purportedly Zhang Yimou's epic House Of Flying Daggers. I'll give them a stab.

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