Last night, during the final days of the Venice Film Festival, a steady stream of water taxis were quietly making their way into the Marina Militare in the city’s historic Arsenale shipbuilding docks, whose towering brick walls seemed to shimmer thanks to dramatic projections of rippling water across every surface. Atop one wall sat an enormous decommissioned submarine emblazoned with a glittering Aston Martin logo, while on both sides of the water sat vintage sports cars under spotlights.
It was an undeniably dazzling setting—but equally eye-popping was the seemingly endless stream of stars arriving at the jetty, one after the other. Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Douglas, Dominic Cooper, Joel Edgerton, and Kevin Costner all made appearances in sharp tailoring, followed by a younger generation of rising actors in town to promote their latest movies, including Joe Alwyn, Micheal Ward, Cailee Spaeny, Haley Bennett, and Raffey Cassidy. Not far behind them came Adrien Brody—the toast of this year’s festival thanks to his powerful turn in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist—arriving arm in arm with his partner, Georgina Chapman. Finally, George and Amal Clooney made a grand entrance off the back of the premiere of Wolfs the night before, with Amal wearing a showstopping emerald green gown that seemed to float behind her (and continuing her impressive fashion streak over the past week from Lake Como to the red carpets on Venice Lido).
As musician James Righton DJed and guests sipped freshly squeezed peach Bellinis, the crowd moved into the main venue for the night: a former shipbuilding warehouse with two long banqueting tables lavishly covered with white roses and with hundreds of glittering lamps strung from the ceiling. (A three-course meal overseen by the Michelin-starred chef Riccardo De Prà, including spaghetti with Amalfi lemon and caviar and a dish of beef tonnato, soon followed.) Then came the grand unveiling: accompanied by theatrical classical music, a sheet was raised off the outline of the new flagship Vanquish model, which sat on a floating platform, as Formula One stars Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso joined Aston Martin executive chairman Lawrence Stroll on the platform for a toast. After cocktails and dancing until 1 a.m., the night’s attendees found their water taxis and sped off back into the night. After such a blowout celebration, it was easy to forget there were still three more days of the film festival to go—but thankfully, Daniel Craig was able to make his press conference for Luca Guadagnino’s Queer this morning.
