Hollywood Elsewhere is proudly announcing that last week’s GoFundMe Venice Film Festival campaign has not only reached its goal but has brought in enough dough to cover principal expenses for both the 2025 Cannes and Venice film festivals.

I’m hustling to submit my Cannes press credential application as we speak, and I’ll be doing the same for Venice very soon. Thanks to everyone (a couple of exceptionally generous fellows in particular) who stood up and pitched in…really meant a lot, opened great emotional floodgates.

The toxic pisshounds (two of whom I admittedly wished cancer upon earlier this year…regrettable emotional statements on my part) were full of dire predictions about how the GoFundMe thing might not work out, but these proved unreliable. I really despise a small number of HE comment-thread uglies. Wokeys mostly. All they want to do is urinate over everything.

I am otherwise ecstatic and extremely grateful that everything panned out. I’m trying to find a Venice pad as we speak. I’ll be sharing a THX-1138 Cannes pad with Jordan Ruimy.

Venice Airbnb anecdote: Yesterday I booked a two-bedroom Dorsoduro apartment, called The Pergola, for roughly $2300 for 11 days. (8.26 through 9.6) I had mistakenly declared that I would be the only one staying there, but soon after I informed the owner, Elena, that I would be sharing with a colleague. She asked me to clarify that intention on the application form. As soon as I did that, she replied that the rent would be $977 higher.

I replied that this was an absurd rate hike as the Airbnb page clearly says the rent is slightly more than $2K…no ifs, ands or buts. I asked for a refund and quickly got a cancellation notice. As of right now the money has not been returned to my credit card or bank…whichever.