Director: Kiko Stella
Screenplay: Francesco Bruni, Heidrun Schleef, Kiko Stella, Marina Mizzau
Photography: Italo Petriccione
Music: Franco Maurina 
Cast: Adriana Asti, Flavio Bucci, Antonio Catania, Ivano Marescotti, Elena Sofia Ricci, Giulio Brogi, Ennio Fantastichini, Maria Monti, Michel Rocher 
Editing: Massimo Fiocchi
Produced by: Minnie Ferrara & Associati
International Distribution: Intramovies, via Manfredi 15, 00197 Roma, tel. +39 06 8077252, fax +39 06 8076156, e-mail festivals@intramovies.com 
Year: 2001. Running Time: 100’

Based on stories by Marina Mizzau, How to Make a Martini is a choral film built around a collection of loosely-knit short stories. The setting is Milan, the heart of the film takes place in a fashionable restaurant, on an early summer’s evening. The characters meet in the restaurant and we learn about their personal stories while arguing about “how to make a Martini”, a subject considered a highly amusing pastime in certain fashionable circles. For over a century it’s been debated by the illustrious and the sophisticated, at cocktail parties, bars, hotels, and today – in a more democratic fashion – on the Internet. Everyone has his own recipe and claims to make the real perfect Martini; the more cynical call it “my own personaltini”. Martinis are also discussed at the restaurant bar, among the bartenders, maître and waiters, but in this case hierarchy prevails over the egalitarian debate on recipes.

 

 
 

 


Kiko Stella
Born in Thiene (Vicenza) in 1951, he has worked as a director and a producer for twenty years in the fields of cinema, television and advertising. In 1985 he directed Rosso di sera obtaining the Prize of Indipendent Italian Cinema at the Festival of Bellaria and the Prize Filmmaker for the story Imperfetto orario in the film Provvisorio quasi d’amore, a Rai 3 production. His shorts and his works in the fields of video-dance have won prizes and mentions at most qualified festivals in Italy and abroad. He was co-producer of the film Giro di lune tra terra e mare by Giuseppe Gaudino, presented at Nice Festival in 1997.