Latest news with #Nino
Winnipeg Free Press
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Nino,' ‘The Hen' and other avant-garde films that TIFF programmers are obsessed with
TORONTO – A French film about a young man facing a devastating diagnosis and a portrait of humanity from the perspective of a chicken are among the movies in the Toronto International Film Festival's competitive Platform program. TIFF announced contenders for the $20,000 prize on Tuesday ahead of the festival's 50th edition in September. It's also the 10th anniversary of Platform, which programmer Robyn Citizen says was developed to spotlight 'bold directorial visions' at the vanguard of filmmaking. This year's lineup includes 'Nino,' the Pauline Loquès' directorial debut that had its world premiere at Cannes earlier this year. Citizen describes the film as a character study of a twentysomething, portrayed by Quebec's Théodore Pellerin, who is diagnosed with cancer and reflects on life while wandering around Paris. The program also includes 'Hen,' a live-action film from Hungarian director György Pálfi that follows a chicken that escapes a grisly fate and tries to build a new life. TIFF programmer Dorota Lech says 'Hen' also offers a look at Europe's migration crisis through the hen's eyes. 'This is live action. It's not animated in any way,' Lech said on a video call with reporters last week. 'I honestly have no idea how he made it because there is so much drama in that chicken's eyes and behaviour. I'm obsessed with this film and thrilled that it's in Platform.' An international jury will choose the Platform winner, to be announced at TIFF's closing awards ceremony on Sept. 14. The program also includes a film from Mi'kmaq director Bretten Hannam, 'Sk+te'kmujue'katik (At the Place of Ghosts).' The Canada/Belgium production has elements of horror and magical realism, but Citizen says it's a family drama at heart. It's about two Indigenous brothers who reconnect in the forest near their home to confront someone from their past, who is visualized in the film as a monster. 'Bretten's view of the natural world and how they integrate their characters in it is what makes their work exceptional,' Citizen said. Opening the Platform program this year is 'Steve,' a film from Belgian director Tim Mielants starring Cillian Murphy as the headmaster of a reform school for boys. TIFF runs Sept. 4 to 14. On Monday, festival organizers dropped their most robust announcement to date, touting films from big-name directors including Guillermo del Toro's 'Frankenstein,' Benny Safdie's 'The Smashing Machine' and Scarlett Johansson's feature directorial debut 'Eleanor the Great.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2025.
Eater
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
New York Is a Red Sauce Town. So Why Are These Restaurants Quietly Disappearing?
Red was the sauce, dark was the night, and empty the room at Nino's Restaurant, a red-sauce stalwart on the Upper East Side. Looking over the sea of unblemished white tablecloths was Shemsi 'Nino' Selimaj, the dapper Albanian owner who opened the restaurant in 1991. Eyes wary under a heavy furrowed brow, chin chiseled over a black turtleneck, Nino stood implacably behind the fallow cash register. A waiter walked by with plates of spaghetti carbonara and rigatoni alla vodka. A pianist joined three women — strangers — for a drink before he began his set. Then he shuffled over to the grand piano, tucked into the corner underneath a painting of a woman in a bikini on a Vespa in front of the Colosseum. The sounds of Herman Hupfeld's 'As Time Goes By' fill the mostly empty room with their melancholic beauty. The restaurant, slated to close in June, was going gently into the dying light. Just before the bar, a mural on one side of the wall trumpets the restaurant's once-flourishing clientele. Painted by Evolving Image, a sea of celebrity- and celebrity-adjacent faces peer out in awkward likenesses, like 2D taxidermy. A youthful Bill Clinton sits at a table with Hillary. Behind them stands Donald Trump, back when he was just a silly New York celebrity. Barbara Walters, Cindy Crawford, James Gandolfini, and a svelte Rudy Giuliani, pre-flop era, gaze out impassively. They're all there: Everybody went to Nino's and, in the mural, the titular Nino appears everywhere, an anti-Waldo: serving glasses of wine, stooped in conversation, bearing a tray of canapes. But tonight, save for a few early birds, there's just one Nino, contemplating the future. Scott Semler/Eater NY Like other red-sauce joints in New York City, Nino's future is cloudy. The building's owners, the Manocherian Brothers, are demolishing the structure later this year. A 23-story high-rise will stand in its stead, leaving Nino's out on its ear. Nino's is not alone. Elsewhere in the city, red-sauce joints have been closing left and right, leaving a mournful trail of marinara in their wake. Say a kaddish for Two Toms, which closed in Gowanus in 2019, and Frost in Williamsburg, which succumbed in 2023. Tommaso's in Bensonhurst went dark in December 2024 (and reopened in May in a new location). In 2024, Pietro's closed at its longtime Midtown home, and now, it will relocate to a more modern space, bringing the question of whether it will be the same (of course not!). After 112 years, Ferndinando's Focacceria closed in February. Nothing lasts forever. Sic Transit Gloria Meatball. But why? Why is this genre of restaurant, so highly revered and heavily referenced, slowly going the way of the delicatessen and the appetizing store? The reasons touch upon demographics, economics, and aesthetics. The red sauce joint is a product of the mass immigration of Southern Italians that began in the late 19th century and petered out in the middle of the 20th. A cucina povera, the classic garlicky and tomato red sauce fare — a parade of Parms, a volley of pasta with gravy — is a direct outgrowth of the poverty faced by many of those immigrants, both in Italy and in the United States. The aromatics and alliums, all of which make the food so beloved, the comforters of cheese and blankets of breading, the oblivion of pomodoro sauce, compensated for lower-quality (read: more affordable) meats. Scott Semler/Eater NY By the 1950's, as the fortunes of those Italians improved, Ian MacAllen, the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American, tells me, 'red sauce restaurants had entered their golden age. People are eating it in a way that is your average Irish white guy is going out to an Italian restaurant and it's upscale.' However, says MacAllen, that golden era, like all golden eras, didn't last. 'In the '70s, there is a transition where people, for a variety of reasons, are talking about authentic Italian and by that they mean, Northern Italian.' Marcella Hazan and Lidia Bastianich ushered in an era more Under the Tuscan Sun than The Godfather. The Olive Garden was born and though the breadsticks were endless and Alfredo creamy, the vision of Italy it conjured neatly bypassed the poor Italian Americans who fled Southern Italy to establish themselves in America, one plate of spaghetti and meatballs at a time. Apart from demographic shifts, the appetite for novelty has not augured well for the red-sauce joint. The menu at Nino's, for instance, is virtually indistinguishable from any other red-sauce joint across the country. Red-sauce joints are like folk music more than pop: a stable of standards interpreted. Novelty is not the name of the game. Fried calamari; fresh mozzarella; homemade pastas like gnocchi with tomato sauce and cavatelli with broccoli; imported ones like spaghetti carbonara and rigatoni alla vodka; mains like grilled salmon, veal scallopini, braised lamb. For dessert, cannoli, tiramisu, and tartufo — a dessert that, like Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, exists only within the footprint of a red-sauce joint kitchen. As more restaurants scramble for an increasingly stretched dollar, drawn and quartered by food cost, labor cost, and real estate, they chase the unforgettable. Restaurants aren't restaurants. They are immersive experiences. A neighborhood restaurant, what a red sauce joint is in situ, is unspectacular. Its value builds over time. The currency is predictability, stability, year-over-year. The exchanges are familial. Like a municipal bond, the yield is slow and steady. But restaurants are not separate from the same desperate rapacity that is currently skullfucking our world. Everything is short-term yield, get in and get out, smash and grab. Leases are short; lifespan is limited. YOLO is not a call for sober mindfulness — you only live once; life is precious — but for nihilistic indulgence. You only live once; fuck it. Let's eat! So every restaurant is out to get their own. The sunsetting of the red sauce joint is adjacent to the decline of the diner, with the atrophy of civic life, the contraction of the agora, and, ultimately, the destruction of democracy. Overblown? Sure, but also kinda true. It might be helpful to note that no real red-sauce joint — including Nino's — calls itself a red-sauce joint, just as no real dive bar calls itself a dive bar. Nino's, Gargiulo's in Coney Island, Giovanni's Brooklyn Eats in Park Slope, or Michael's in Marine Park are not red-sauce joints but neighborhood restaurants. To the extent that neighborhoods disintegrate into a hellscape of vape shops, condos, and outrageously priced streetwear boutiques, they falter. To the extent that the neighborhoods remain intact, the restaurants remain vibrant. Take Gargiulo's, which occupies an entire city block just across the street from the Cyclone. On a recent Friday night, tuxedo-clad waiters solicitously wove their way between white-clothed tables. Lobsters in a tank forlornly awaited their fate as fra diavola. Third-generation chef Matthew Cutolo turned out canonical dishes like chicken francese and calamari oreganata. On the patio, near a gazebo, customers from the neighborhood ate pizza and watched the fireworks burst over the ocean. A restaurant like Gargiulo's or Nino's, where no one is telling you how or what to experience, where no quorum of influencers is telling you 'OMG you just have to order,' where no dish has been genetically engineered for maximal virality, feels, to us, unfinished and incomplete. Little do we realize that it is us, showing up, slurping fettucine, that we are the ones who complete the picture. There is no better proof of this than the fact that the gradual extinction of the red-sauce joint is accompanied by a resurgence in homages to, and simulacra of, the red-sauce joint. Restaurants like Carbone and Cafe Spaghetti, as well as Don Angie, San Sabino, Bad Roman, and more, nod to the Southern Italian staples of a traditional red-sauce joint but repackaged into something slicker and more modern. They are breathtakingly delicious, yes, but just different beasts entirely. And yet, these reincarnations might be the red-sauce joints' greatest hope. Shortly after Francesco 'Frank' Buffa abruptly closed his focacceria in February, it was Sal Lamboglia, his neighbor from Cafe Spaghetti, who announced he'd be taking it over. Scott Semler/Eater NY Scott Lamboglia is taking over Ferdinando's Focacceria. Scott Semler/Eater NY Buffa reportedly said to Lamboglia, ''Sal, everything is coming from destiny,'' Lamboglia says. 'I brought him some tiramisu. A week later, he called me, 'I think I wanna go with you.'' Lamboglia, who is planning to resurrect Ferdinando's famous lunches — once served to nearby longshoremen — opens this fall. Meanwhile, over in Ridgewood, the son of decades-old red-sauce staple Joe's Restaurant opened — quietly, flying under the radar of media attention — an offshoot Joe's Pizzeria (66-53 Forest Avenue), carrying along the family's legacy — only this time with neon lighting. In Williamsburg, fresh off their reboot of Kellogg's Diner, Nico Arze and Louis Skibar, alongside Michelle Lobo of Nura, have reanimated a former Williamsburg dive bar as JR & Son, an aria of chicken Parm (theirs spicy), checkered floors, and framed photographs. The kitchen, led by a one-to-watch, Patricia Vega, brings red sauce into 2025, including influences from the chef's time at Thai Diner. Desserts by pastry chef Amanda Perdomo, like an Italian rainbow cookie cake, are often vegan — another sign of the times. And even Nino announced that he'd be moving the restaurant — to the home of what was once Le Périgord — in a couple of months. As for the mural, he is bringing it along. But, as Nino says, there'll be no new faces. 'It's original,' he says. 'It's coming with but it's not changing.' Scott Lamboglia is carrying on Carroll Gardens red-sauce and bringing into a new era. Eater NY All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Bloomberg
03-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Illy: Planning to Produce More Products in the US
00:00 We did anticipate a decline because this was you remember last time I was here, I said it's purely speculative. Turns out that has been maybe possibly a surplus in the last crop and is substantial for a forecast for a substantial excess in production for the years ahead. So there are new plants being planted, new areas may develop the stocks which are piling several countries which are producing overperforming. It's typical every time you have the prices reaching bike, then you have production skyrocketing. And so we didn't increase price too much, so we kept our volume right, a increasing market share. And of course, we will have an arbitrage between our costs, our margins and the cost of coffee, which in the meantime is turning in a positive direction. Does it change your outlook? No, no. I would say I was a little bit more concerned after having made a thorough studies. I had a longer trip in the Minas Gerais area where 50% of the Brazilian coffee is grown and 20% of the world coffee is grown. Last year was serious. Why? Because the first time in history the Nino did in fact in three different areas of production, all seven months without one drop of rain in the peak temperature much ahead normal. Was it exceptionally? Probably, yes, because last year the sea did increase as much as it did in the last ten years. So therefore, the Nino was stronger in the area of geographical area of influence has been higher. But good news. Several, many different practices and investment for resilience. Really the resistance agriculture from regenerative agriculture, which is the most say the first step in most promising irrigation, new techniques for, you know, plant rejuvenation, innovation and new area development, as I said. So it's very promising to see how the market is reacting because there is a desperate willingness to produce coffee from the growers side because the demand actually is increasing quite a lot, right, in terms not as much as it used to to increase because, you know, there has been a kind of a level of with the with a global global, let's say, as we as we knew it from years ago is not the same. This a buoyant trend. It is a little bit flatter but China is growing its internal consumption. The US is keeping increasing consumption. Europe is more flat in the Middle East is coming up and India, minor countries, let's say minus the geographies. I know you've always actually spent quite a lot of time looking at agriculture and, you know, doing it sustainably. Do you see any reason to fear a supply shock on the Arabica front this year? I would say no, because as I said already, last year has been quite a shock with the drought in in Vietnam, one drought, severe drought in Brazil, it proved to be extremely resilience as proven by the fact that there has been no physical deficit. It has just been a big alarm, which triggered a gigantic speculation. So this resilience can only increase thanks to the new practices, the new knowledge and the new investment in the in the fields. This initiative, let's say promoted by the G last year with under the Italian presidency, is to launch a public private partnership for mobilising impact. Investment directly in the plantation is significant because it did mobilise effort from any different possible actors like the World Bank, like the Inter-American Development Bank, like many private funds. So there are investments which are, let's say, coming in in the plantation in different countries and all doing the same things which proved to be effective. So this is very positive. And how it when you look at higher retail coffee, I mean, is that impacting some of the consumption or have you seen, you know, consumption change? Do people have higher quality custody but less coffee? Coffee is typically an elastic because we kind of needed in our life. And is it true for journalists? I don't know if it's true for everyone in the portion of the budget that the dries is very, very small at the end of the day. So there is a kind of elasticity, not so much by drinking less cup, but wasting less and maybe down downgrading a little bit to the coffee you buy. So that means too, that volume wise, we don't see a contraction of volume and value. Has been a that's a little bit elastic, but less elastic than other products. How are the Chinese consuming differently to Western to to the Western? They are becoming kind of self internal. So they are trying to consume their own brands. So they are brands which are reacting really strongly to the international, let's say, penetration of American and other brands. So that means that it became a kind of internally focus. And I don't I'm not aware about how much is the Chinese coffee production growing also, because there is a kind of a limit from the ecosystem point of view. But I see that there is it is in line with this idea of China to be kind of nationalistic a little bit in terms of attitude, and they consume it at home or in coffee shops. I remember saying, you know, I remember you telling me actually years ago that the UK, when you have a coffee, people want to sit and spend a long time actually at coffee shops, which is very different to Italy, for example, where you have an espresso and you go, yes, coffee shop is experiential. You typically go to a coffee shop in China to me to also show show off. Yeah, but not necessarily. You drink coffee. This is the point. Home is more. Let's say consumption is a habit and is still predominantly instant coffee although in the let's say area where there are more expats, there is a substantial espresso, espresso based drinks consumption in Shanghai and other coastal cities. And you must have been hit by tariffs right from the US. Did you front load? Was there a big shipments in the US ahead of the tariffs? 10% from the export from Italy to the U.S. and we hope this will be fixed. Will it? I don't know. Will Depends on the negotiation with Europe, which is undergoing those days. Yeah. And yes, it is tricky also because I think at the end of the day, it's a pity we have been there since over 45 years now in the United States. And it would be really a pity to completely, let's say, change our trajectory, which is very much in collaboration with the US. Let's say administration for that. So we are discussing and we are planning maybe to accelerate our decision to produce locally more of the products which are typically consumed in the United States. We'll see.
Time Out
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
This new Bushwick pizza joint has the oldest coal oven in America, and it's opening tomorrow
Seeking out the best pizza places in NYC will lead you all over the five boroughs. Our city is home to second best slice in the world and still continues to churn out new 'za joints in every neighborhood. Some of the best restaurants in Brooklyn are also pizzerias, including a brand-new addition: Lucky Charlie, opening tomorrow at 254 Irving Avenue in Bushwick. Created by award-winning chef Nino Coniglio (of Williamsburg Pizza and Coniglio's fame), the restaurant takes inspiration from slice shops past, specifically the coal-oven pizzerias of the 1920s and Nino's own Sicilian heritage. But the true gem surrounding its debut sits in the corner of the kitchen: a coal oven built in 1890—the oldest in America!—which formerly provided fresh bread for the neighborhood's Italian immigrants. The building's landlord, Charlie Verde, discovered this iconic historical artifact in 2002, and thus, lucky Charlie became the restaurant's namesake. Scrawled on chalkboards, the menu highlights Italian imports (Sicilian olive oils, San Marzano tomatoes), seasonal rotations of meat (beef ragu, aged ribeye) and seafood (tuna crudo, clams casino), plus oven-baked pasta dishes. Ten-percent sourdough creates thin but fluffy crust for daily pizzas that include a classic pie with red sauce and Italian sheep's milk pecorino; a white pie laden in stracciatella, ricotta, and salty pecorino sardo; and a saucy red pie souped up with basil and breadcrumbs. You can always ask for additional toppings like locally sourced sausage, cup-and-char pepperoni, Sicilian olives, artichoke hearts, and even house-made meatballs. Alongside Sicilian wines, expect curated classic cocktails like martinis doused in Calabrian chili brine and a gin and tonic playfully called 'Tony & Geno' with house-made rosemary syrup. Most notably, chef Nino is the only pizza aficionado to ever apprentice with legendary chef Dom DeMarco (Di Fara Pizza) and has received numerous accolades abroad, in addition to championing Food Network's Chopped. Lucky Charlie is Nino's first project with a coal oven, where he applies techniques and ingredients pulled from pages of the O.G. NYC coal-oven joints of the 1900s. Across the tiled threshold guests are greeted with 'Va Eccati,' meaning 'Let's get outta here,' as the 42-seat space recalls throwback New York City: exposed original brick, stained glass sconces, red-leather bar stools, vintage posters and personal photographs galore depicting chef's family and ancestral roots.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes Critics' Week Awards Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's ‘A Useful Ghost'
Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke's 'A Useful Ghost' has picked up Critics Week's Grand Prize. The film has been picking up fans among journalists since the premiere, intrigued by its absurd yet sweet story of a woman who dies from dust pollution and a husband who's shocked to find out her spirit has been reincarnated – in a vacuum cleaner. More from Variety 'Romería' Review: A Budding Filmmaker Pursues Her Parents' Obscured Past in Carla Simón's Lovely, Pensive Coastal Voyage 'My Father's Shadow' Producer Funmbi Ogunbanwo Headlines Inaugural African Producers Accelerator Program (EXCLUSIVE) Mórbido TV and Screen Capital Unveil Umbra, a Genre-First Streaming Hub for the LatAm Market (EXCLUSIVE) 'A ghost-possessed vacuum cleaner might sound like standard horror fare, but in the hands of Thai director Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, it transforms into a sly commentary on pollution, power dynamics, and the cost of living crisis in Bangkok,' wrote Variety's Naman Ramachandran earlier this week, with the director adding: 'Thailand is well known for horror cinema, and we also have a genre that might not travel abroad very much – horror comedy. But with this film, I try not to follow the conventions of both paths. One of my first ideas was wondering how a ghost could exist in contemporary society. Do they need to work? Because the cost of living here is now very expensive.' The jury, presided over by Rodrigo Sorogoyen and featuring Jihane Bougrine, Josée Deshaies, Yulina Evina Bhara and Daniel Kaluuya, also awarded 'Imago' by Déni Oumar Pitsaev. In the film, Déni inherits a patch of land in the wild valley of Pankissi and sees a chance to finally build the house in the trees that he's dreamed of. But nothing in the rugged Caucasus is ever simple. Returning to a village just across the Chechen border where he was born, Déni stirs up old feuds. The Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award went to Théodore Pellerin for 'Nino' by Pauline Loquès. Among other partners' prizes, the SACD Prize, awarded by France's Writers' Guild, went to Guillermo Galoe & Victor Alonso-Berbel, co-scribes of Sleepless City ('Ciudad sin sueño). Directed by Galoe, the Spanish-French feature delivers a lyrical, stylish but heavily grounded vision of a increasingly fissiparous Roma family in La Cañada Real, said to be the biggest shanty town in Southern Europe, whose way of life is disappearing as its residents are moved to sterile high-rise apartment blocks on the outskirts of Madrid. . Le Pacte, French distributor for 'Left-Handed Girl' by Shih-Ching Tsou, was awarded the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution. Here's the full list of awards: Grand Prize 'A Useful Ghost' by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke French Touch Prize of the Jury 'Imago' by Déni Oumar Pitsaev Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award Théodore Pellerin for 'Nino' by Pauline Loquès Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for Short Film 'L'mina' by Randa Maroufi Awards given by partners Gan Foundation Award for Distribution Le Pacte, French distributor for 'Left-Handed Girl' by Shih-Ching Tsou SACD Award Guillermo Galoe and Victor Alonso-Berbel, authors of 'Sleepless City' Canal+ Award for Short Film 'Erogenesis' de Xandra Popescu Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
