Here’s a new twist on the age-old SoCal commute. Big Time PR owner Sylvia Desrochers has traveled some 7,000 miles, by way of New York stopover for a wedding, to wind up in the south of France sharing this picture via Facebook:

“The address is 21 rue Pasteur, near the Carlton Hotel,” Desrochers tells FishbowlLA. “I have no idea why the building is called Los Angeles, but the one next door is called Santa Monica!”

“The rental agent couldn’t really enlighten me on the reasoning. The building is a typical Cannes apartment building: older, probably pre-war, with the original elevator with the gate and everything. So not very LA in the sense of history. But I do always feel like the weather here is similar to LA, especially Santa Monica or Venice. It’s warm when the sun is out but can turn chilly very easily – especially when it’s foggy or rainy, like this [Wednesday] evening.”

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Along with being the editor of Southland Publishing’s Arroyo Monthly magazine, Irene Lacher continues to contribute provocative weekly celebrity “Sunday Conversations” Q&As as a freelancer to the LA Times. She was once a staffer for the paper. We covered the one she famously did some time ago with actor Thomas Jane and want to also highlight her intriguing January 13 discussion with Anita Hill.

All four premiere screenings in Park City of Anita, the documentary about Hill’s landmark sexual harassment battle, are already sold out. The only downside of Lacher’s interview is that at the time of the discussion, Clarence Thomas‘ former accuser had not yet seen the film. Hill explained how Anita came about:

“I had been approached by two or three filmmakers about doing a documentary, and for two or three years I simply said no, and Freida Mock had come back a couple of times. I wanted to work to make sure that if the story was told that at least I had some positive input. So after talking with Freida, I just felt that she was the right person to tell the story. She persuaded me in this very calm, clear way that I and the story would be in good hands. And that’s all she promised me.”

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Sylvia Desrochers (pictured), owner of Big Time PR, is returning tomorrow from a most unusual trip. She met up in the city of Manaus, Brazil with a group of east coast entertainment journalists to shepherd them through the seventh annual Amazonas Film Festival.

“Manaus is a city of about two million in the middle of the Amazonian jungle,” she tells FishbowLA via email from the Southern Hemisphere. “It’s only accessible via boat or plane. The reason it’s such a thriving city is because a couple of decades ago, the government made it a free trade zone. If a business can prove that it’s not polluting, it can operate in Manaus tax-free.”

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