Venice Film Festival – The world’s oldest film festival ended its 71st edition and, as always, the foreign press, followed with careful attention. There were articles, for example, on the first prize to Swedish director Roy Andersson (September 6 on Bloomberg – Sweden’s Andersson wins Golden Lion at Venice fest; La Vanguardia – El sueco Roy Andersson gana el León de Oro del Festival de Venecia; Publico, – Festival de Veneza premeia o sueco Roy Andersson com Leão de Ouro; ABC, – León de Oro en Venecia para Roy Andersson por una comedia sobre la miseria humana; The Times – Addio, Lido: Last Postcards from the Venice Film Festival*).
The German paper Die Welt ran a piece on the critical success of “Pasolini” by Abel Ferrara (September 5 – Italien trifft auf deutschen Wald), and the Spanish El Pais told another story of Italian cinema, that of the producer Titanus, the subject of a book presented at the Festival of Locarno (September 9 – Titanus, el sueño de Italia).
Italian culture in America and North Africa – The return of an ‘elegant’ bookstore. Rizzoli Bookstore has kept its word and opened in New York in a new location that has kept the charm and décor of the original (Wall Street Journal, September 7 – Urban Gardner: Rizzoli Bookstore Set to Reopen in St. James Building in Nomad).
But the foreign press also wrote about the promotion of Italian culture in North Africa. According to La Presse the first office of the International Association of Studies of Italian Language and Literature has open in Tunisia. Its purpose is not only to act as the venue for the spread of Italian, but also as an academic center of Italian culture in Africa (September 4 – La langue de Dante parle de ses projets).
Tourism in Northern Italy – The “Off Duty Travel” section of the Wall Street Journal went to discover Lake Garda (September 5 – Italy’s Lake Garda—Better Than Como?), and wondered whether it was a good alternative to Lake Como, better known among American tourists. And the Washington Post, wrote about those, like George Clooney, who have been in Italy for much long, choose Venice – one of the world’s most romantic places – for his wedding (September 8 – Clooney says he’ll wed fiancee in romantic Venice).
Fashion and cosmetics – There was also interest in fashion. Rueters wrote about the interest of the Milan stock market in Intercos, a leader in the creation and production of cosmetics for international brands (September 9 – Italy’s Intercos files listing request with Milan bourse), and the Wall Street Journal met the CEO of Moncier, Remo Ruffini, visiting his home in Milan (September 10 – Remo Ruffini’s Second Home in Milan*).
* marked articles viewable online upon payment or registration