Campari becomes the centrepiece of the 82nd Venice Film Festival The Campari Lounge has become a cultural space with after parties, awards and exclusive presentations
At the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, Campari didn’t just appear as a sponsor: it built an actual parallel program that, through screenings, talks, parties, and awards, turned the Terrazza Biennale and the Campari Lounge into one of the festival’s main hubs. More than a branded space, the Lounge established itself as a crossroads where cinema, music, and pop culture met on common ground, with a constant flow of casts, directors, journalists, and enthusiasts. The calendar opened on Thursday, August 28 with La Gioia by Nicolangelo Gelormini, presented alongside Valeria Golino and the cast, followed by an after-party that kicked off the season of Campari-style evenings. The sequence continued on Monday, September 1 with Portobello, the series by Marco Bellocchio narrating the story of Enzo Tortora through the interpretation of Fabrizio Gifuni. Two days later, on Wednesday, September 3, the Lounge celebrated Duse by Pietro Marcello, dedicated to the icon Eleonora Duse, with Valeria Bruni Tedeschi among the protagonists. On Friday, September 5, it will be the turn of L’isola di Andrea by Antonio Capuano, with Teresa Saponangelo and Vinicio Marchioni.
Alongside the official presentations, the Lounge hosted side events that set the pace of the Festival days. On Sunday, August 31, the Filming Italy Venice Award took place, while the following day saw Reel Women, an event dedicated to female presence and vision in international cinema. On Tuesday, September 2, the Campari Passion For Film Award was presented in the Sala Grande: this year it went to Gus Van Sant, a key figure in American independent cinema and author of films that redefined the imagination of multiple generations. That same evening, Campari hosted the after-party of Dead Man’s Wire, an out-of-competition title with a cast including Bill Skarsgård, Colman Domingo, Dacre Montgomery, and Al Pacino. The program then spilled over into music, expanding the narrative beyond cinema. On Friday, September 5, the Lounge will host three events dedicated to three leading figures of Italian music: Nino D’Angelo with the documentary Nino.18 Giorni, Piero Pelù with Rumore Dentro, and Francesco De Gregori with Nevergreen.
Piero Pelù, con Rumore Dentro e Francesco De Gregori, con Nevergreen.
The program will conclude on Saturday, September 6 with the Fanheart3 Awards, a collateral prize focusing on the relationship between fan culture and film production, now in its seventh edition. Completing the picture, during the festival’s second week, the renowned Ciak Magazine party also took place, one of the most popular events of the Venice Film Festival. Between daytime press junkets, a cocktail list curated by Camparino in Galleria, and evening parties, the Campari Lounge carved out the role of a dynamic backdrop within the festival, capable of connecting the most institutional moments with the lighter ones. A program that, without leaning too heavily on rhetoric, shows how Venice has become for the brand a laboratory to experiment with a language that merges the frenzy of the festival with the cultural cross-pollination of the arts.
