The 68. Venice Film Festival is over. It always attracts media attention as one of the most important annual events in Italy. This year at the request of the magazine OK Olga Sorokina visited the film festival ! She shared her experiences with OK readers. 

« Every spring i come in Venice to feel refreshment of mind and body. And suddenly i had a chance to visit Venice in september. How could I refuse such a nice opportunity, especially when you are invited to a celebration of the great actor Al Pacino. 

However everything was so not so simple: the Venice Film Festival! So sounded the sentence to my holidays. So what, I thought there are beautiful beaches in Venice! As it turned out, nobody uses the beaches of the Lido.  

But it’s still nothing in comparison to the fact that I saw Venice under a completely different angle. Neither better nor worse, just differently. Being a happy tourist, you can never notice what can see a professional. After having visited Venice, anyone interested in fashion sees how Louis Vuitton is linked to Italy. 

Thanks to the festival I learned that in Venice you can move not only by gondola, but also on a bicycle. Using this vehicle you can kill two birds with one stone: firstly, you can always look fashion, especially if you choose the color of the bike following the trends of the new season, and secondly, you escape from photographers.  A crowd of journalists coming in Lido for the festival sensations look every passer-by in the face hoping to find in him a star. To be honest it’s not a very pleasant experience. Especially when you consider that the stars do not want to be photographed outside first performances, parties and red carpet.  Similar confusion occurred with Madonna who had to ignore the fans who were waiting for her appearance in the morning in the lobby, where she was supposed to give interviews, just to avoid to have these unfortunate pictures. That’s why she had to listen to a bunch of unflattering shouts from the crowd during his next appearance in public. But when you're on a bike, no one even looks in your direction (my tips for new stars). Moving by bicycle you never know about attacks of photographers and never see their bad pictures in magazines.

As someone from fashion world i especially remembered the presentation of two documentaries about fashion arranged by Franca Sozzani (editor in chief of Italian VOGUE). The first film was dedicated to the great designer Emily Schubert who dressed in 60th Anna Magnani, Sophia Loren and became a teacher of Valentino Garavani. The second film was about Diana Vreeland who by their influence on fashion can be compared only to Coco Chanel. He seriously made me think about how to make a documentary about the history of IRFE. In addition to the hostess Franka Sozzani the party was attended by Valentino in company of Bianka Brandolini and producer Daniel Venturelli who in 2008 made a film about Valentino - "The Last Emperor." 

Al Pacino had at least two things to celebrate at the 68th Venice Film Festival. On Sunday, September 4, his film "Wilde Salome" was debuted to positive reviews and he was honored with Jaeger Le Coultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award. About fifty people were invited to the dinner party in his honor at the Palazzo del Cinema.

I spent all the dinner with the starring actress Jessica Chastain and the film producer Barry Navidi. Jessica made a very good impression, she joked all night and it was evident that her excitement before the first performance already disappeared. She wore a very beautiful dress Eli Saab. 

The Venice Film Festival gathers artists and fashion designers from around the world: in his schedule there are series of first performances for actors and journalists artists, showrooms for designers and beauty brands as well as parties for all other people who come here. Speaking about fashion, most of all I liked the dress of Madonna by Vionnet and Natasha Poly in Gucci.