For the last two or three years I’ve only been able to attend the Telluride Film Festival through the grace and charity of Sasha Stone, who’s been renting a large, centrally located three-bedroom condo. I’ve been on the couch, and gratefully so.

Alas, Sasha has decided against attending Telluride next September (she’s miffed about not being invited last year to the Patron’s Brunch) and so I’m out also. Even if I was bringing in a reasonable income the off-the-charts Telluride greed factor would make it impossible to rent on my lonesome.

And so after 14 years of attending glorious, soul-nourishing Telluride (my debut visit was in 2010) I’m planning on attending the Venice Film Festival for the very first time — 7 and 1/2 months hence. 

I’m also half-persuaded that I can’t do Cannes this year. We’ve lost our Old Town, Napoleonic-era, rue Jean Mero apartment and the local greedheads are just as bad as their Telluride counterparts.

I don’t think that early-bird viewings of Paul Thomas Anderson and Terrence Malick’s latest will be worth the pain. I’d still like to attend, of course, but I have no choice but to accept, etc.

Venice won’t be cheap either, of course. I’ll be once again passing the GoFundMe hat. As HE is entirely Patreon-free and wide open now, I’m hoping that the same generous followers who pitched in last year for Cannes ‘24 will repeat the favor. Excepting those whom I wished cancer upon, of course. I understand their reticence.

It appears as if it might make more financial sense to stay in Dorsoduro (my favorite Venice district) and each morning take the vaporetto to the Lido, and the return to Dorsoduro in the mid evening. 

Does anyone know anyone who plays it this way? A freelancer who pays his/her own way and has stayed in the city? I’ve been to Venice six or seven times over the last quarter-century but I’d like to ask them some questions. 

I’m not against staying on the Lido, mind, but it seems a lot pricier.