LONDON: I first fell in love with film festivals more than a decade ago in Berlin. On a snowy winter’s day, nose pressed to the frozen pane of a bus window, I spied the warm glow of a bedazzling theatre front, decked in fairy lights, announcing the advent of the annual Berlinale.

Later that week, I wandered to the historic Musik Halle to find a crowd of German film aficionados, gathered for a festival screening of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, accompanied by live music. It was love at first sight. Far-flung festivals have since become a way of life.

Take this year. After Los Angeles’s sombre Golden Globes Awards presentation in January, I boarded a plane to Rotterdam to edit the Daily Tiger paper for that city’s film festival. From there, I took a train to the Berlin festival to work for the Hollywood Reporter, then flew to New York to work for Tribeca, a small festival run by Robert De Niro.

One of the highlights of the festival circuit is the friends factor scores of fellow troopers, who trail from one end of the earth to the other in the name of film. You never know who might pop up where.

A New York film critic remarked to me recently: “I wonder if some of these people actually have homes?” Mentioning to another festival junkie in Berlin that I had just seen a mutual acquaintance in Rotterdam, he replied: “That’s funny. I saw him at the festival in Hungary last week.”

At film festivals, one is guaranteed to meet a varied cast of characters. In Berlin, I sat atop a Renzo Piano building on Potsdamer Platz, the former site of the Berlin Wall, and listened to a former festival head, Moritz de Hadeln, recounting tales of the Cold War; he said it was no surprise to find 300-page memos from Russia, and Eastern bloc agents at his door.

I saw Madonna face the music over her new film; Penelope Cruz dismiss her beauty; and Daniel Day Lewis delve into British politics, before boarding the plane to New York.

Come May and all eyes turn to the French Riviera. Cannes, it is often said, is the place where anything can happen, from lavish parties in seaside mansions to impromptu gatherings on bombastic boats. Last year, I hitched a ride home in a shimmering Rolls-Royce and drank wine with Roberto Cavalli on a trip to his yacht. And that was just in one night.

At the Cairo Film Festival one year, I was befriended by a group of young men who would trail around town with me each night taking in the local sights. In the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary it was another scene altogether.

I got swept along by a crowd of hard-partying eastern European celebrities making daily visits to the therapeutic spa pools to recover from the night before. I have attended premieres in ski trousers and mittens in Utah for Sundance, and in France I have wandered barefoot around the shores of Dinard in Brittany, which was hosting the annual British Film Festival.

One veteran recently recalled how, in the first years, the opening night party would double as the closing night gala for the racing season. “It was quite a crowd,” he said.

Sometimes you don’t even have to travel to get the film festival thrill. Recently, in my home town New York, the Bulgarian Film Festival opened its doors with a speech from a uniformed and bemedalled diplomat talking about changing perceptions of Bulgaria, while a local pop star wailed on stage. Forget joining the navy, I say. With film festivals you can see the world in style.—Dawn/ The Guardian News Service