I am probably the only film-maker in England today. “And how can that be?” you ask incredulously. Well, you need look no farther than these pages. Everyone even remotely connected to the movie business is at the Cannes Film Festival, all enjoying a sun-drenched freebie.

And against my better judgment, perhaps I’d be tempted to be with them, had I finished my 20-minute masterpiece Boudica Bites Back. Alas, it is still in post-production. Well, maybe next year . . . in the short-film category – the Palme d’Or du Court Métrage. Well, a chap can dream, can’t he?

My association with the world’s most highly regarded film festival goes back to my friendship with the Bond producer Harry Saltzman, who – while courting me to “get into bed with him” on an action-adventure movie – tried to seduce me with a taste of the high life: sun-drenched days on his yacht, a red-carpet film premiere every night and endless parties where we were treated like royalty. Yes, I succumbed. I made Billion Dollar Brain for him – after which he may have wished that he hadn’t wasted so much time and money.

But the next time I had a bona fide reason for attending the festival, I was not invited. I’d won the Critics’ Prize for my musical fantasy Mahler (1974), starring Robert Powell. Sadly, the producer forgot to inform me, but kindly went along to pick up the prize in my place. So at least I was present by proxy.

In fact, I had to wait 13 years, until 1987, before I had my work on show there again – an honour I had to share with nine other directors in a collectively directed project, nominated for the Palme d’Or. It was called Aria and it was a selection of ten-minute shorts set to operatic arias.

There is no denying their novelty value. Nic Roeg had his divine wife Theresa playing the youthful King Zog in a false moustache, who shoots her would-be assassins, to the music of Verdi. Jean-Luc Godard used Lully to inspire him in showing beautiful naked girls attempting to arouse indifferent hunky weightlifters.

Robert Altman used the music of Rameau to depict mayhem in a madhouse, while I used Puccini’s aria Nessun dorma from Turandot to illustrate a bloody car crash and out-of-body, diamond-studded operation in altered space. There was more of love and death in Franc Roddam’s segment, as a sexy couple commit suicide in a bath in Las Vegas – and blood gurgles down the plughole to Wagner’s erotic Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. Bruce Beresford, Derek Jarman, Charles Sturridge, Julien Temple and Bill Bryden provided other novelties, but I’m sure you get the picture.

Anyway, this operatic epic was screened at the producer’s request on the last night of the festival, a wish granted on condition that he take care of the bill for dinner. The screening took place to a packed house in the Grand Palais before red-carpet royalty, who applauded politely as Don Boyd, the producer, introduced his film showcasing a bevy of great international directors and yours truly.

Now, I don’t know whether or not the grand guests were all music lovers. Suffice to say that, as the film dragged on, the audience dwindled drastically. I guessed that they had headed for the bar. But strange to say, as the end credits rolled to growing applause, it became obvious to me that the aristocrats had all sneaked out in the dark for their dinner – and all were voraciously hungry.

Poor Don Boyd. I felt for him as he watched any profits he might have hoped for disappear down a thousand ravenous throats.

But the last time I strolled along the Croisette, the circumstances were completely different. A small distributor was handling the release of my low-budget production Fall of the Louse of Usher, a portmanteau of updated Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe. No posh hotels such as the Majestic or Carlton, but a small bed-and-breakfast with bunk beds, full of Japanese tourists, in a suburb a long bus ride out of town. But at least the company also flew out my wife and daughter. No party on a yacht, just drinks with a bunch of freeloaders in a pokey office with a windswept balcony, where my wife was mistaken for Frances McDormand. The action was “hi”, “bye” and a silent “why?”. And drama, when the receptionist had her purse stolen by a partygoer in a daring grab-and-run.

Seven years on, you might wonder if there were profits. Yes, there were. And as soon as I’ve finished paying off the expenses for that week spent at the B&B and the entertainment on the balcony, I will be eligible for royalty payments. Don’t talk to me about Cannes!

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