İKSV Galas kicks off with ‘Cafe Society’

The festival is setting up similar events in the upcoming months.

Screened as the opening film of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, “Café Society” tells a panoramic tale of glitzy New York and Hollywood of the 1930s replete with movie stars, millionaires, playboys, professors, prostitutes and gangsters.

Taking its name from the glitterati of the period, the film is a dynamic, as well as sentimentally weaved, touching and glamorous comedy.

Allen said he has always been fascinated by the 1930s. “It was one of the most exciting times in the history of the city, with tremendous theater life, café life and restaurants. Up and down the line, wherever you were, the whole island was jumping with nighttime sophisticated activities.”

“Café Society” follows Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) as the Bronx-born youngest son of a peculiar family of jewelers whose ambitions take him to Hollywood and back again to New York. 

As he has more and more trouble putting up with his bickering parents, his gangster brother and the family jewelry store, Dorfman feels like he needs a change of scenery, so he decides to go and try his luck in Hollywood where his high-powered agent, Uncle Phil, hires him as an errand boy. 

In the glamorous Hollywood alleys filled with scandal, gossip and beautiful women, he soon falls in love but when his love is unrequited, he returns to New York, where he transforms a nightclub into another kind of glitterati hotspot.

Three-time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro is the cinematographer of the film, whose narration is taken on by Allen himself, as in several of his earlier films.