News On the occasion of its 50th edition, Italy’s oldest film festival after that of Venice welcomed numerous celebrities: Michael Douglas, Fanny Ardant, Judi Dench, Francesco Rosi, Antonio Banderas and… Harry Winston Rare Timepieces.
Every year, Taormina, a picturesque holiday destination in the south of Sicily, hosts one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. During the fifty years of its existence, it has retained its aura of exclusivity thanks to its setting (the town is located at the foot of Mount Etna), but also and above all thanks to the exceptional quality of its program. Since the era of Italian neo-realism, this festival has become established as the venue that showcases cinema in its most artistic form.
This year, on 20 June, the curtain fell on the 50th edition, following a week of celebration and prizes in recognition of the world of cinema and those to whom it owes its national and international success. For the second year running, the firm Harry Winston Rare Timepieces was invited to design the festival’s official prize, the Taormina Arte Award for Cinematic Excellence, awarded every evening to a cinematic personality. This year the prizes took the form of limited editions of two Harry Winston timepieces in rose gold.
The prize awarded to women was an Avenue C model characterised by the fluid lines of its curved case and the boldness of its Captive openwork wristlet, while men received an Excenter, the world’s foremost timepiece powered by an automatic movement with bidirectional seconds (see photo). To commemorate the event, each of these eight models was engraved with a reference to the festival. They were awarded to the actors Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas (see photo), the actresses Judi Dench and Mira Sorvino (see photo), the directors Francesco Rosi and Margarethe Von Trotta, producer Luigi Magni, and producer-distributor-owner Paulo Branco.
Casting a true reflection of its values, Harry Winston created this year a space that was both exclusive and intimate: the Rare Moment Club. Occupying a splendid terrace and suite in the Timeo Hôtel, it quickly became a hot-spot for VIPs and celebrities in search of a moment’s relaxation. Every evening during the festival, at cocktail time, it welcomed guests such as Isabelle Huppert (accompanied in our photo by Maximilian Büsser, General Manager of Harry Winston Rare Timepieces), Fanny Ardant, Roman Polanski (accompanied in our photo by the Marketing Director of the Genevan firm, Gianluca Maina), Emmanuelle Seigner, and French stylist Emmanuel Ungaro.
August 25, 2004
