My fourth Venice Film Festival has concluded and I hope to go back every possible future year, even if Asia Argento (Dario’s precocious daughter) says that “nobody cares about the f****** Venice Film Festival”. Pair her up with Quentin Tarantino who said he “really loved the Italian movies of the 1960s and 1970s. But what happened? It’s a real tragedy”, and one might wonder why I even bother with I Love Italian Movies.
But I’m my own person and I’m not going about Venice the same way most journalists are; I couldn’t care less about seeing Al Pacino’s movie and I’ve usually got my family with me, so I’m not at the Cinema Village from dawn til dusk.
My husband Brian and I met our daughter Lauren there on the opening day and promptly gave away our tickets to Birdman to a lovely girl at the front desk of our hotel (our favorite hotel) the Luna Baglioni. Why? Because we hadn’t seen Lauren in a while and we all just wanted to have a nice dinner and drink some wine. And Lauren could only stay with us for a few days.
So we went to one of our old favorites, Corte Sconta, a place that Brian picked years ago because he thought it smelled good when he went running past it one day. It seems to be popular with locals and tourists alike, and it is always packed. If we don’t have a reservation we don’t get in.
Brian always says that he’s going to do other things at the Biennale, but rarely gets to very much, because our days are pretty busy with a crazy schedule of sleeping late, spending an hour or so in the Luna Baglioni’s beautiful breakfast room (me writing about Italian movies and him working on his fantasy football team), the movies, lunch + wine, a nap, and more movies.
We love dinner in Venice because, who doesn’t, and that’s why it’s such a sacrifice to make it to the 10:00 PM movies on Lido. That’s our dinnertime. I’m already thinking about which wine we should choose in the middle of the 7:30 screening and don’t even think I could concentrate properly after 9:30. We find places we like and go multiple times, like Hosteria Da Franz, an intimate restaurant with extraordinary service from owner Maurizio and waiters Luca and Alessandro and a “to die for” kitchen. There’s no menu, at least I’ve never seen one, and Maurizio just tell you about the great things he’s found at the fish market that morning. He’s not shaken up by a vegetarian either, and when I call to make a reservation (which a I highly recommend) he goes to work thinking about something interesting for me.
I can finally find it now, after all these years, without having to give myself at least a half an hour of “getting lost time”. It’s tucked back into a lovely little neighborhood near the Arsenale and I couldn’t give you directions with a gun to my head, but it’s worth the trouble of finding, trust me.
I lost count of how many pizzas I ate at Da Roberto, a pizzeria not too far from San Marco. When I approached the waiters took to saying, “Buonasera “PizzaMargheritaBenCottaConCipolle”. And I’d nod yes and get ready for pizza the way it’s supposed to be made, very thin and simply made.
I saw very few non-Italian films this year; Brian and Lauren went to see Manglehorn with Pacino and the three of us went to see Peter Bogdanovich’s ‘She’s Funny That Way’. It was so-so.
But with one disappointing exception (La Vita Oscena) I loved everything from the Italians and I loved Ivano De Matteo’s ‘I Nostri Ragazzi’ so much I saw it twice.
I made so many stars and directors take selfies with me that my picture is probably tacked up on a wall somewhere with the caption, “If you see this woman, run for your life!” Though I hope not, because I want more of them.
And I’m very happy that Saverio Costanzo’s Hungry Hearts got recognition from the jury; Alba Rohrwacher and Adam Driver won best actress and actor and deserved the honor.
Will these films make it to America? We’ll have to wait and see, but I’ll let you know the minute I hear anything.
I Love Italian Everything 