Venice’s Mostra comes alive beyond the cinema

Venice no longer needs more visitors by late summer, yet the city’s Lido draws every eye in early September as the Mostra returns. The island between the lagoon and the Adriatic hosts the 83rd Venice Film Festival, where cinema once again blends with fashion, luxury and theatrical spectacle.

Actors cross the canals by water taxi. Paparazzi wait beside the landing stages. Visitors hold up their phones, hoping to catch a star among the passengers of one boat or another. Even diners in tuxedos eating pizza become part of the festival’s visual drama. When the Mostra arrives, the city changes pace.

“The festival is one of Venice’s great weeks, and during these days the city transforms completely. People even come from other parts of Italy to work only for this week,” Ramón Jordana, a Barcelona-based representative of Georgina Rodríguez and founder of Angels Project, told La Vanguardia from Venice.

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The festival is one of Venice’s great weeks, and during these days the city transforms completely. People even come from other parts of Italy to work only for this week.

Jordana helps stage some of the stars’ spectacular arrivals. “Here, the boat replaces the car as a means of transport, and that turns every arrival into a small cinematic scene. Every outfit, every appearance and every detail is measured to the millimeter, because everything works like a great catwalk for luxury brands. Precisely because of the expectation and interest it generates, you understand why this festival is one of the most exclusive events in the world.”

The festival fever has also reached Venice’s luxury hotels. The Gritti Palace, one of the city’s most emblematic establishments, has become a meeting point for guests and festival professionals and entered the weekend fully booked. In the palaces along the Grand Canal and the hotels downtown, meetings continue after the screenings end. If the day belongs to cinema, the night often belongs to fashion.

Brand parties, dinners and gatherings have become almost as much a part of the festival landscape as the films. On Thursday night, a new Pierre Cardin museum opened in the Venetian palace once inhabited by the designer, a familiar figure at the city’s major parties and one of those who helped make them essential gatherings for high society and the fashion world.

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Here, the boat replaces the car as a means of transport, and that turns every arrival into a small cinematic scene. Every outfit, every appearance and every detail is measured to the millimeter, because everything works like a great catwalk for luxury brands. Precisely because of the expectation and interest it generates, you understand why this festival is one of the most exclusive events in the world.