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Bringing to mind that little-known time when a snoring Anna Nicole Smith was briskly escorted from the Cannes premiere of Wong Kar-wai's 2046, chatter coming out of the desert has folks wondering what Britney Spears might be up to at the ongoing CineVegas Film Festival. This isn't quite like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan hitting Park City to ostensibly promote their own films, after all; with four years remaining before Crossroads: The 10th Anniversary Cut makes the A-list fest rounds, Britney's attendance may have been purely incidental to the cinephile bedlam around it. Nevertheless, at least one observer (a fest juror, no less!) wasn't letting the celebritunity pass her by:

[T]he presence of Britney Spears in a poolside cabana at the CineVegas party was enough to turn all of us serious cinema people into gawking gossips. I counted four people in her cabana — and every time I looked in, no one was speaking, and at one point, Ms. Spears herself appeared to be texting — but this micro-entourage required a full wall of security detail, and attracted a nearly-unnavigable crowd of onlookers.

Everybody tried to get a picture, but every time anyone got anywhere near enough with a camera, at least one bodyguard would raise a finger in a terrifying point, a silent gesture of pure terror. ... Why was she here? Did the festival invite her? Did The Palms pay her to show up? Did she come to see movies?

In actuality, the silent-cabana hint suggested a scenario that a scan of our Defamer Britney-Text Interceptor™ log confirmed late Sunday: After all those painstaking negotiations between the two in recent weeks, "Ms. Spears" simply couldn't close a deal to pre-sell Mel Gibson's new film to distributors at CineVegas. Or maybe "2 bad mel always TIFF :-(" simply meant they'd have to take in their planned screening of the sold-out Schoof if/when it plays at Toronto this fall. Anything's possible.

[Photo Credit: X17]