Venice, Italy
Mission Title: Festivacant - Empty Glamor and the Venice Film Festival
Mission By: Luís Grilo, Marc Fabres
Mission Finished on Date: 18-06-2008
SCRIPT
- Visit the Lido and take a look around.
- Check out the spaces of the Casinò and the Palazzo del Cinema, as well as the Palagalileo nearby. Report the different uses of these spaces in non
- festival times, interviewing people who work there.
- Go visit Hotel Excelsior, Club 22 and Pachuka. Ask the owners about their average customers during and outside of the festival, and about any events they might organize for the Venetians in low
- tourism months. As for Excelsior, ask them if celebrities visit a lot the Lido when they're on vacation.
- Visit the beaches and see how many of them are free for you to hang out. Report the atmosphere of the island when in lack of mass tourism or VIPs.
TRAVEL BAG
What are the empty spaces of glamor?
The Venice Film Festival has been packing in the glamorous cinematic demimonde for decades. Men with black glasses and white hair with blonde bombshells in short sequined dresses on their arms A cloud of divas, actors, directors and the like descend upon the “golden island” of Lido di Venezia, like flies shitting on a sugar cube. A sunbathing tourist laying on one of the few beaches that are not the property of high-end hotels might be lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) enough to catch a glimpse of some forgettable Hollywood starlet whizzing by on a motorboat, sunglasses on, the wind blowing through expertly coiffed hair. For the mortals, the festival days are still a good chance to have fun, drinking your anonyminity away in good, friendly company. The noble nobodies can chance to sneak in at the hotel Excelsior, go party at the Club 22 – if you feel cooler – or at Pachuka – if you're more laid back, alternative or poor.
When the festival is not lighting up the island with its tarnished aura, the Isola d'Oro shines quietly of its own warm glow. A beautiful seaside and a rich and varied architectural landscape, the Lio – as the locals call it – is also a nice place for people to just come over and enjoy, riding a bike or going to the beach. As for the festival locations, the Casinò and the Palazzo del Cinema, when there's no divas around, host other cultural events or the much more discrete medical conventions. This mission is like going to a war with no battle or too a concert where the band isn't performing, this is a mission about the empty spaces and tinsel accoutrements of illusory glamor.
