Wine and agriculture at the “Venice Film Festival”, between “dolce vita” and poetry

From events before film screenings to gala dinners, at the “Venice Film Festival” n. 80, Italian wine and cuisine celebrate the myth of the “dolce vita” and renew the timeless partnership between great cinema and our food and wine, which makes stars of every era fall in love with Italy. In the glasses and dishes of the most important international actors, directors and producers, who, from today until 9 September, will parade on the red carpet of the Venice Lido in the competition for the “Golden Lion” - among the most awaited, Sofia Coppola, Woody Allen and Bradley Cooper as director and actor of the film with the Italian title “Maestro”, but also Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain, Adam Driver and Micky Rourke, and, representing Italy, Pierfrancesco Favino, Toni Servillo and Valerio Mastandrea - there will be bubbles, from Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Docg to Prosecco Doc, reds, from Valpolicella to Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, and whites, such as Pinot Grigio delle Venezie. But, there will also be the world of Italian agriculture, whose stories and territories have inspired and continue to inspire the greatest screenwriters and directors, such as the masters Federico Fellini and Ermanno Olmi, who have narrated the poetry and beauty of small things in films that have made cinema history.
An edition no. 80 which, as never before, is preparing to reveal many unmissable films and an Italian cinema always of high quality represented by six films and which, after the inauguration of the Exhibition in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido with Caterina Murino ‘Godmother 2023”, sees Stefano Sollima compete with “Adagio”, Edoardo De Angelis with “Comandante”, Sergio Castellitto as director of “Enea”, Saverio Costanzo in competition with “Finalmente l’alba”, Matteo Garrone with “Io capitano” and Giorgio Rights with “Lubo”, and by the director Liliana Cavani “Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement” and in Venice for the film out of competition “L’ordine del tempo”. And in which the Consortium di Tutela del Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Docg is present at the events organized by chef Tino Vettorello at the Terrazza Biennale by Campari, a prestigious location overlooking the Promenade of Lido di Venezia with a suggestive view of the sea, and the closest restaurant to the red carpet which welcomes actors, journalists, critics and institutions with a wine shop dedicated to the famous bubbles, and the restaurant of the Palazzo del Casino, with a dedicated wine list, where the labels of the Denomination’s brands - from Bival to Borgoluce, from Bortolin Angelo to Bortolomiol, from Ca’ dei Falchi to Mionetto, from Nani Rizzi to Sorelle Bronca and Valdo - accompany the menus prepared along with the Venetian food and wine tradition and revisited in a contemporary key. Great events and special moments also in the Sala degli Stucchi overlooking the sea of the Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort, as well as in the Italian Pavilion where in an ethereal atmosphere the cinema icons become abstract shapes through a soft and dynamic morphing process made of concentric lines, and to welcome the stars, before plunging into the applause that await them between stages and red carpets, are the bubbles of Prosecco Doc Rosé by Ponte1948. Official partner of the Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo, a company that has been promoting cinematographic culture in Italy since 1947, Masciarelli Tenute Agricole also pays homage to VIPs and celebrities with its wines, from the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Doc Riserva of the “Iskra” line to the Rosso Terre di Chieti Igt of the “Castello di Semivicoli” line, in aperitifs and exclusive events between the Cinematograph Space of Ente dello Spettacolo and the Cinema Terrace by Atlas Concorde of the Hotel Excelsior.
But at the Venice Lido there are also farmers, protagonists at the “Festival Food” in Riva Corinto, where, with Coldiretti Veneto, the agrichefs of Terranostra and the producers of Campagna Amica present local dishes and products, from Barena honey to vegetables from Cavallino, from Asiago, Monte Veronese, Grana Padano and Piave cheeses to Treviso sopressa and Belluno speck, and wines, from Pinot Grigio delle Venezie to Valpolicella’s reds, alongside the classic Venetian cicchetti such as sardines in saor and historical recipes such as the “bigoi in salsa”. At the Excelsior, on the other hand, with the Veneto Region and the Veneto Film Commission, on 8 September, the stories of Italian agriculture interlace with those of films: from the life story of Matteo Marini, an engineer who gives up work in the office to save the Malga di Dosso di Sotto on the Asiago plateau, where the memories of a childhood spent on the pastures are the same ones chosen by the director Ermanno Olmi for the last film of his career “Greenery Will Bloom Again”, to the dialect verses “Venessia, Venissa, Venusia” written by the poet Andrea Zanzotto for the director Federico Fellini for “Casanova” which give their name to the Venissa estate and to the wines of Matteo Bisol’s cellar, in the heart of the lagoon and Venezia Nativa, with the interventions of the producer Elisabetta Olmi, daughter of the master, and the testimony of Fabio Zanzotto for the Foundation named after his father.