Soon after my arrival in Cannes it becomes clear that the festival doesn’t shy away from the whole truth of the movie industry. Rather, it embraces and celebrates the glamour, the commerce and the art of filmmaking in equal measure. It’s a heady, over-the-top mix that makes my 10 days at the Atelier an intoxicating carnival.

I’m one of 18 international filmmakers whose projects have been invited to the festival, all expenses paid. Our films are on the verge of being made; we all have a polished script, the commitment of a first producer and partial financing. The Atelier is intended to get us over the final financing hump and into production by organizing meetings during the festival with potential financial partners: distributors, sales agents, international co-producers and the elusive and coveted equity financiers.

In its second year, the Atelier has already proven successful. Seventeen of the first year’s 18 projects have been funded and are in either pre- or postproduction. Amazing results, but still, I try to approach it with a Buddhist mind-set, as I’ve already suffered plenty of the ups and downs of the financing roller coaster.

The Atelier is located in one of several temporary pavilions set along the water. A spacious outdoor patio with tables and chair shaded by umbrellas is where my meetings will take place. Over six days — seven meetings a day — I will meet with 42 potential partners who have requested a meeting based on a beautiful catalogue that includes a synopsis of my film Virtual Love, a director’s statement and pictures and bios of me and my producer, Lydia Pilcher, who is also attending.

Bleary with jet lag, Lydia and I are presented with a schedule of our week’s meetings, which are set at half-hour intervals. Our first, with a German acquisitions company headed by Paul, a charming Frenchman, is typical of most meetings. We exchange business cards, and then Paul describes his company, which this year has two films in competition, and some of the many impressive films in its catalogue. Feeling that we’re a good fit creatively, we move on to discuss Virtual Love.

Like everyone we’ll meet, Paul has requested the meeting because he liked the synopsis of my movie. But he read it weeks ago, and, typically, the story is not fresh in his mind. So it is up to me to pitch it to him. This is not something I like doing, nor is it something I feel I’m very good at. (I’m great once a person has read the script — then I can talk about the movie ad nauseam — but selling it from scratch? Oy.) But it goes well enough, and he offers us the possibility of a foreign presale or co-production. Because the U.S. doesn’t have production treaties with foreign countries, in order for us to receive, say, German state funding we’d need to shoot part of our film there. Virtual Love is a true story and takes place in Los Angeles and New York, locations crucial to the story. So our only option for co-production is for us to do our post outside the U.S.

On our second day I confess to Lydia that I know I’m doing a less than stellar job pitching the film and that I hate doing it. She explains that I’m really selling myself, that these investors have nothing else to go on except me as the director. Also, she adds, “you’ve spent three years of your life on this project — clearly you love it. Why wouldn’t you want to talk about it?”

It’s a “light bulb” moment. She’s right. I have a talk with myself, and for our next meeting, with Anne, the head of a British film company, I try shifting gears. I decide to talk about the movie as if I were telling a friend an amazing story over dinner. To my surprise, Anne is leaning in closer as I talk. She gets tears in her eyes. She is emotionally involved because I am emotionally involved. Because of this change in my presentation style, our ensuing meetings become easier and the connections between everyone at the table stronger. Lesson learned.

Over the course of the week different financing scenarios present themselves. Do we want to do post outside the U.S., and if so, where? Munich, Rome or Seoul? Do we accept a large equity offer (which came out of a meeting on a yacht owned by the investor) even though the terms of the deal are not the best? Which foreign presale situations are best? Or do we wait?

My meetings take on a hypnotic rhythm and I get into a groove, though near the end of the week my fellow Ateliers and I greet our morning meetings bleary-eyed behind sunglasses and clutching coffee. It hasn’t been just work and no play.

We are all feted and cared for by Georges Goldenstern, the director of Atelier, and his colleagues — Catherine Jacques, Cecile Campbell and Cyrille Imbrosciano, who not only coordinate our meetings but get us tickets to screenings (I see nine movies), invites to parties and generally ensure we have a good time, which means staying out late and smoking cigarettes even if we don’t at home. Even Cannes’s over-the-top reputation does not disappoint: A meeting on our third day is scheduled with one producer, but with him are two hulking Tony Sopranos: cigars, the clothes, the swagger. They enter the Atelier friendly but manic, looking like they’ve been up all night.

Lydia, trying to get a handle on the situation, asks “So…how did all you guys hook up?” “We met last night at a party!” says the producer. “I told them about Virtual Love!” Tony No. 1 pulls out Variety and flips to a full-page color ad of an upcoming horror movie with his name as producer above the title. He looks at me. “This is my movie,” he says. “It’s got script problems. Take off your sunglasses and look at me!” I do.

“You’re a serious writer!” he says. “I can see it in your eyes. I want you to rewrite this script. Anything you want, anything.”

His partner nudges me from the other side. “Do this for us and we’ll produce Virtual Love. Meet us later on our yacht,” he says, pointing vaguely toward the harbor. “We’ll work out the details.”

Now I’m creeped out, imagining being beholden to these guys for the rest of my life. Later, recovering with a bottle of wine on the terrace of the Carlton Hotel, I find it impossible to talk because throngs of people are screaming and climbing the railing like in The Day of the Locust, trying to catch a glimpse of the X-Men stars in the middle of a nearby photo shoot.

Lydia and I head back to New York. On the plane I pull my script from my backpack — the first time I’ve looked at it in weeks — and marvel that this is what all the fuss has been about. With the financing presented at the Atelier, we begin piecing the financial jigsaw puzzle together, hoping it will bring this dormant embryo to life.

Jean-Pierre Limosin concerning his meeting with the Yakuza boss, M. Kumagai:

“He asked me if I would be interested in filming from inside a Yakuza clan. I answered that I thought it was impossible. I mentioned the two Japanese documentary filmmakers who had been stabbed while carrying out an investigation, as well as the director Juzo Itami who had got slashed in the face by a gang after the release of his fictional film which presented a caustic view of the mafia. He insisted, all the same, for me to come see what a Yakuza clan was really like.”

A wayward Japanese youth’s apprenticeship with the Nipponese mafia provides an intriguing premise but little substance in French docu “Young Yakuza.” Like Japan’s other cultural touchstone, the geisha, the Yakuza have found expression in both Japanese and Western movies seeking to reveal arcane practices and strict hierarchy, but have remained veiled in secrecy. Pic observes rather than delves. Due to no fault of the filmmaker, docu loses direction due to an absconding protagonist. Fests may want to take a peek, but a lack of meat will disappoint.

At docu’s beginning, concerned mother Mrs. Watanabe considers a proposal from a friend that she hand over her unemployed, criminally disobedient son, Naoki, to the local yakuza gang boss in order to mold her boy into a more disciplined and useful member of society.

With nothing else to do, 20-year-old acne-faced Naoki agrees to begin a 12-month engagement with the Kumagai clan (or gumi) of Tokyo’s Shinagawa district. Boss of the clan is Mr. Kumagai. With a face like a battered Noh mask, the gang boss explains that circumstances are getting tougher for the yakuza now that, with police encouragement, shopkeepers and businesses are successfully banning gangsters from their premises. Kumagai further laments that recruitment is a problem because discipline is out of fashion with young Japanese and that unpaid servitude is a distinct disincentive.

After a casual job interview with Kumagai-san, Naoki is issued a tracksuit uniform and ordered to get a haircut. Initial indoctrination involves the right procedure on how to prepare and deliver the boss’s tea. Pic tentatively shows glimpses of the tattooed gang members (most spectacularly in the bathhouse scenes) and the full array of mundane duties Naoki is expected to perform — from housework to nightclub security. Months later, at docu’s three-quarter point, having gained the gang leader’s trust, Naoki is given a day off when his (unseen) uncle is ill even though his colleagues are busy offering crowd control backup to Tokyo police during a Shinto festival. In a manifestation of every documaker’s nightmare, Naoki goes missing. Kumagai speaks of his conflicted feelings of betrayal and parental inadequacy, but has no real interest in tracking his missing protege.

Likewise, the helmer turns his attentions to the legal problems of a fully fledged yakuza who has beaten up an ordinary citizen, but as this new protagonist remains off-camera due to his arraignment in jail, the pic never really recovers. Part of the dilemma is inherent in Kumagai-san’s perimeters for involvement in the doc. As he explains, Yakuza are involved in legitimate businesses but also exist in parallel to mainstream Japanese society. There’s a line that separates their “shadow world” from wider society and the gang boss emphatically states he will not allow the film to cross that line. Consequently, though intriguing, docu offers little more than a superficial glimpse of the yakuza realm. Instead, the film relies heavily on exoticism that allows the recording of intriguing images without revealing anything of depth or significance.

Helmer does himself no favors by letting the film run to 99 minutes, as the rudderless narrative brutally exposes the padding. Naoki appears once more at the film’s ending, but the reasons for and his activities during his absence remain unexplained. For a docu, lensing in 35mm is a luxury, but the film’s appearance could easily be mistaken for lower-quality stock. Music by Japanese rappers aims to string sequences together with gangsta street cred, but is ineffectual. Camera (color), Julien Hirsch, Celine Bozon; editor, Tina Baz; music, RGM, Xavier Jamaux; sound, Nobuyuki Kikushi, Masaki Hatsui, Takeshi Ogawa, Francois Musy.

Luchetti’s film may be far from the sort of broad yockfest Douglas specialized in, but, most of the time, it’s still infectiously funny. We first meet our hero, Accio (Vittorio Emanuele Propizio), as an adolescent misfit in seminary school, circa 1960. Giving up on being a priest, he returns to his working-class family in Latina, a small town 40 miles from Rome.

Since his family members are all socialists, the still rebellious Accio has little choice but to become a Fascist, under the tutelage of neighbor Mario (Luca Zingaretti), who still regards the majority of his countrymen as traitors for having turned against Mussolini in 1943. The political dynamic in the household becomes dominated by the friction between Accio and his older brother, Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio).

About 20 minutes in, we leap forward to Accio’s late teens — with the role being taken over by Elio Germano — when the ideological tension becomes inextricably bound up with romantic tension: Accio falls madly in love with Francesca (Diane Fleri), Manrico’s big-city girlfriend. And the conflict becomes further confused by the political upheavals seizing Italy (and most of the rest of the industrialized world) as the decade wears on.

In description, this may sound dreary, but Luchetti directs with a light touch that recalls the Italian comedies that were popular — in the U.S. as well as Europe — during the period it portrays. And, while no one in the cast is the next Mastroianni, Germano brings an edge to his work that allows him to overshadow the more conventionally handsome Scamarcio.

Young Yakuza is also about family dynamics but within a rather different sort of family. Like My Brother Is an Only Child, it’s partly a coming-of-age film, but — in its form, its milieu, and (sad to say) its quality — it couldn’t be more different.

First of all, it’s a documentary (at least allegedly): French director Jean-Pierre Limosin (Novo) somehow got permission to film within the traditionally closed chambers of a Japanese crime organization. He decided to center his film on Naoki Watanabe, an aimless young man whose mother — on the suggestion of a trusted friend — arranges for him to be apprenticed to a mob boss named Kumagai. She hopes that he will learn a few things about respect and responsibility and find his place in the world.

Naoki seems to be happy with his initial duties, cleaning and shopping. But he’s almost expressionless, so it’s not that big a surprise when we learn he’s unhappy enough to simply leave town halfway through the film, not to be seen again until the very end. The director is forced to weave an awkward narrative cloth involving various other members of the Kumagai family.

The notion that the gangsters were willing to be filmed seems so preposterous that I kept looking for signs that Young Yakuza was a scripted mockumentary. But eventually I came to believe Limosin’s claims, simply because, with all the options fiction provides, no one would deliberately construct so dull and meandering a story. That his subjects play their cards close to the vest is to be expected; but one might have hoped he could coax something a bit more revealing, or merely interesting, from them. My Brother Is an Only Child. Directed by Daniele Luchetti. Screenplay by Sandro Petraglia, Stefano Rulli, and Daniele Luchetti; based on the novel Il Fasciocomunista by Antonio Pennacchi. With Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Diane Fleri, Alba Rohrbacher, Luca Zingaretti, and Vittorio Emanuele Propizio. Opens Friday at Laemmle’s Royal.

Young Yakuza. Directed by Jean-Pierre Limosin. With Naoki Watanabe, Chiyozo Ishii, and Hideyuki Ishii. Opens Friday at the ImaginAsian Theatre, 251 S. Main St., (213) 617-1033, Theimaginasian.com/la.