Actors and directors of the day mixed with journalists, producers, critics, videographers, photographers, interns from production and communications companies, Festival professionals, projectionists, and ceremonial workers. Press officers and attachés wiggling on the runway alongside film managers administering hundreds of millions, when not billions, all holding their drinks, their contents recognizable by the colour of the glasses: red Campari. That’s the formula, secret but not too secret, much imitated but never perfectly reproduced, of the Ciak Party, the Lido’s most eagerly awaited party of the Festival, organized by our newspaper, in which all those involved in the myriad aspects of filmmaking, their storytelling and the construction of festivals and events from all over the world, mingle for an evening letting loose next to each other without any more fences or distinctions of roles. The party, hosted Wednesday evening at the Biennale Cinema’s Campari Terrace, just a few steps from the sea, preceded by a dinner in honour of the Starlight award, was attended by more than 600 of the 700 people invited (requests to be there had come close to 1,500!).
During the long evening, which turned into a party and ended late at night, selfie hunters were able to indulge with, among others, Elio Germano, Elena Lietti, Pif, Luigi LoCascio, Liliana Fiorelli, Francesco Foti, Miguel Gobbo Diaz, Tommaso Ragno, protagonists of the movies featured Wednesday in the various sections of the Venice Film Festival, while the directors’ category was represented by, among others, Gianni Amelio, Paolo Virzì, Ricky Tognazzi, who received the Starlight Award in the afternoon, the revelation Carolina Cavalli and many other well-known and lesser-known faces signing the works in competition at Venice 79.
Before the dances were unleashed, almost everyone lent themselves to the ritual of photos at the backdrop where the brands of the party’s sponsors and makers, from Pata to Apei – Ambassadors Pastry Chefs of Italian Excellence, to Tangoo Digital, were also standing next to each other, while on the dance floor some danced with a real bird of prey on their shoulder, those who displayed a man’s mask (very photographed) as an offshoot of their right arm, and even a few dance enthusiasts who ended up shirtless even though the evening was cool and breezy from the sea.
It was also a non-wet party, which is why it was lucky, because dancing in the rain would have tasted quite different. But Lady Luck was merciful, letting just those four ordinance drops come down. For everyone, from top managers such as Paolo Del Brocco, Nicola Maccanico, Andrea Scrosati, to young web and social media journalists, fatigued after ten days of Festival and by now close to the final destination, the Ciak Party was a moment to disconnect, really leaving out for once from the Campari Terrace computers, minipresses, previews and press conferences, ingredients of a non-stop work, which at the Festival leaves no real space for leisure. So the Rai faces toasted with those of Sky and Mediaset, publicists of the big platforms with those of the distribution companies that vie year-round for viewer-customers’ attention. After its two-year hiatus due to covid, Ciak Party returned to the Lido with its originality and madness, music and drinks, sequins and sequins, to give the Festival that touch of glamour on which cinema has always fed. And now that this very rich edition of the Venice Film Festival is near its end, the evening of music by the sea, capable of deterring even the stoic mosquitoes that have fixed abode on the Lido, will remain as one of the moments that many will take home with them as a symbol of fifteen days lived at high (and exciting) intensity.
By Lisa Thiene and Marco Balduina
