Jaunt: Liberté, Égalité, Créativité
The Monte-Carlo Television Festival is seeking to reshape how we enjoy screen-based entertainment, and the French Riviera — historically, culturally and creatively — is the perfect setting for such a quest.
Spiritual homes for this publication are manifold. London’s Mayfair is perhaps our centre of gravity, but Milan’s Quadrilatero della Moda and Paris’s 7th arrondissement are orbiting bodies. Marbella, Montenegro and Shanghai can’t be visited too frequently; Como, Mykonos and the Amalfi Coast offer a huge draw when the word ‘summer’ is used as a verb, and wintry equivalents include Courchevel and St. Moritz. Across the Pond we have Saint Barthélemy, New York’s Upper East Side, and — given our bond with the movies — Tinseltown, in the city to which this issue is devoted.
But a soul sanctuary that ticks more boxes than most for The Rake is the Côte d’Azur. Its focal point, Monaco — a constitutional monarchy ruled by the Grimaldi family since 1297, and the second-smallest country in the world after Vatican City — is fittingly sybaritic for a place that’s home to more millionaires and billionaires per capita than anywhere else on Earth, while the riviera and its surroundings epitomise all that we celebrate: world-beating cuisine and hospitality, imperious architecture, sartorial swagger (and a retail scene to underpin it), social dynamism, and innovation in artistic pursuits. And above all, cultural folklore. In abundance.
In a single day one might stroll from the Prince’s Palace — where Cary Grant used to visit his friend Grace Kelly after her marriage to Prince Rainier III in 1956 — to Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo for breakfast, before driving a few miles north to take in the lofty location Alfred Hitchcock chose for the picnic scene in To Catch a Thief. Next, one might venture south-west, to the edge of Cap d’Antibes, and the spot where F. Scott Fitzgerald conjured up his treatise on late-1920s French Riviera society, Tender Is the Night. An hour’s drive from here, one can visit Saint-Tropez and catch a glimpse of La Madrague, the villa still belonging to Brigitte Bardot, over which photographer and art collector Gunter Sachs, in the late 1960s, had hundreds of red rose petals dropped from a helicopter.
A stroll away, our daytripper might take in Plage des Canoubiers, where Mick and Bianca Jagger’s nuptial celebrations took place in a hospitality venue — the Byblos Hotel — that has welcomed Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood and George Clooney, among others, through its doors. Sundowners could take place a 20-minute stroll to the south, at Pablo Picasso’s favourite haunt, Château de la Messardière, before a return to Monaco to spend the evening within the Belle Époque interiors of Casino de Monte-Carlo, familiar to all who’ve seen any one of GoldenEye, Never Say Never Again, Casino Royale or Ocean’s Twelve.
All of which makes the Côte d’Azur the perfect setting for an annual event, created in 1961 by Prince Rainier III, to “encourage a new art form in the service of peace and understanding between the people”: the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo. Its programme is a mixture of traditional red-carpet glamour, industry hobnobbing and media-based thought leadership, and the festival’s array of panels, screenings and behind-the-scenes insights into T.V. production trends has — along with H.S.H. Prince Albert II’s role as Honorary President — drawn the likes of Michael Douglas, Helen Mirren and Jessica Alba in the recent past.
“Monaco is a very safe and secure country — very important today — and it’s a very, very special one,” says Laurent Puons, the festival’s General Manager, speaking to The Rake at the Grimaldi Forum, the event’s H.Q., festooned during our visit in sky-blue branding and surrounded by swarms of smartphone-toting visitors. “As a place, it’s an asset to what is one of the oldest festivals in the world. Year after year, from the beginning, when we had Prince Rainier and Princess Grace involved, there were very high-level talents, and the location helps continue this.”
Indeed, the setting, according to Puons, dictates the event programme. “Once, we had just opening and closing ceremonies — now we have parties throughout the event, in beautiful venues in the Principality of Monaco,” he says. This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of changes Puons has executed. “A lot of things have to be continually adapted to market evolution,” he says, citing as an example this year’s Digital Award going to Squeezie, France’s leading content creator with more than 19m YouTube subscribers.
This year was the first in which the heads of both the fiction and factual juries were women, and it also included the launch of the Young Creator Pitch (a competition for budding creators to showcase their non-fiction ideas) — hallmarks of Puons’ plan for the festival to reshape the media landscape. Indeed, on his watch — which began in 2012 — the festival has become as much about thought leadership as it is a celebration of creative achievement. “Seeing, year after year, producers, directors, writers attend the festival, I thought, O.K., but we need to create a place for them to network, exchange, discuss their concerns and the evolution of their business,” he says.
As such, the changing dynamics of content creation, production and distribution — with the shift to streaming and digital, A.I. and diversity all painting their own brushstrokes — are among the topics addressed at the event’s Business Content programme (“And further, at our events, in a beautiful area with a glass of red wine,” Puons adds). This year, Judith Light, Rachel Griffiths, Jaz Sinclair and Sope Dirisu were among the attendees. The Swedish drama Vanguard won the Golden Nymph award — named after the statue Nymph Salmacis by the Monegasque sculptor François-Joseph Bosio — for best series, while Germany’s On a Day in September took home the best fiction film award.
As Puons mentioned, it’s not just a glittering media event that has drawn such figures to the principality during this sweltering handful of days in June. Monaco’s hospitality scene makes short work of the phrase ‘spoiled for choice’. One of the hotels at which The Rake stayed, the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, is owned by Société des Bains de Mer de Monaco, whose additions to Monaco’s attractions include a new cigar lounge with walk-in humidor and a splendid terrace overlooking the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and the Mediterranean. The same group, enlisting the architectural firm Moinard Bétaille and the Monegasque architect Gabriel Viora, has just completed a renovation of the same hotel’s famous wine cellars, which celebrated their 150th anniversary last year and boast a Grande Champagne Cognac from 1809 and a 1945 Mouton-Rothschild.
Amid the treats of Monaco’s summer calendar — the string of events that starts with the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters tennis tournament and ends with the yacht show in September has the Monaco grand prix, Art Week and Jumping International de Monte-Carlo in between — we heartily recommend visiting a place where art de vivre goes into overdrive for a festival that celebrates its 65th edition next summer.
The glamorous hedonism of the location is one reason, but attending an event that chimes so harmoniously with the glorious passages of recent history celebrated on these pages (and may determine how that same narrative thread unfolds in the future) is another. The way we consume, via screens, ‘content’ — a corporate word but apposite here — has always evolved, and what is happening now is akin to the Cambrian explosion. This, more than anything else on the Riviera’s glittering social calendar, is the one to attend if you’re curious about what kind of publication The Rake might be half a century from now.
And assuming you’re as curious as we are about cultural riches from the past, and how they impact the present, over to Robin Wright, the star of House of Cards and Forrest Gump, talking to The Rake on the final day of the event: “I think this whole coastline, Nice, Monaco, Cap d’Antibes — [as an actor] you feel a bond, you feel the sixties. The architecture is the same, and there’s also a gravitas to this area because it has supported film for so many years.”
WHERE TO STAY
The Fairmont Monte Carlo – celebrating 50 years on the Riviera this year – has just unveiled a renovation which has seen rooms and suites updated with a palette of creams and aquatic blues: an update conceived to calm the soul (except when the F1 is on – the refresh has been applied lavishly to private terraces overlooking the circuit’s famous Hairpin bend).
This is a part of the world where luxury rejuvenates roughly as fast as bamboo – and the other property The Rake opted for, The Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, has also, along with its sister property Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo (the Société des Bains de Mer de Monaco also owns Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and the Monte-Carlo Beach Hotel), had some of its top suites revamped of late.
The former’s Diamond Suite – a palatial haven decked out in mauves and aquatic hues, and replete with white leather – has a vast terrace with private jacuzzi overlooking the Prince’s Palace; the latter’s two-floor Prestige Duplex Suite offers a similarly vivid colour palate which, along with the terrazzo flooring and general vibe of zesty modernism, contrasts elegantly with the unapologetic belle époque showmanship you’ll encounter elsewhere during your visit to the Principality.
WHERE TO EAT
For the second summer running, Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo – whose interiors were subject to an extensive makeover by French architect, interior designer and garden designer Jacques Garcia in 2004 – has welcomed Italian culinary luminaries Manon Santini and Rocco Seminara to open their pop-up, Zia, in the hotel’s Karl Lagerfeld-designed pool area, Odyssey.
The name Zia is Italian for “aunt”: but the folksy culinary excellence, here, makes plenty of room for culinary finesse that epitomises, elegantly, the very best of the Italian cuisine found just across a border that’s less than 10 miles away.
For lunch, opt for the sunny flavours offered up by the likes of Sicilian-style Branzino (marinated sea bass with tomatoes, olives, capers and onion pickles); ravioli alla parmigiana, stuffed with mozzarella, confit eggplant and parmesan cream; and the roasted sea bass filet with puttanesca condiment and persillade.
Breakfast – consisting of authentic Italian gems such as ricotta pancakes drizzled with wildflower honey and slow-cooked eggs, Florentine-style, over sautéed spinach and Pecorino Mornay – is another sybaritic delight for the Monaco bucket list, we’re told. “We wanted to bring the authenticity of Italian mornings to Monaco,” explains Santinil “Colazione [breakfast] is not just about food, it’s a state of mind — gentle, generous, elegant.”
Consider Méridien Beach Plaza – and especially the linguine with lobster and burrata, and the fish catch of the day with sauce vierge, panisse and casserole of Provençal vegetables – also comes recommended, for a sunset dinner away from the throngs.
WHAT TO DO
Created in partnership with Dominique London – which has a burgeoning portfolio of high-end cigar shops around Europe – the Monte-Carlo Cigar Club, which opened in May, aims to be the most prestigious smokers’ nirvana in the world: and exploring the 35,000 cigars found within – from brands such as Arturo Fuente, Cohiba, Davidoff and Montecristo – it would take a curmudgeonly stogie aficionado to suggest it hasn’t succeeded.
A guided tour of the aforementioned Cave de l’Hôtel de Paris cellars is also recommended: or better still, in advance of your visit, join Le Cercle des Caves de l’Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo: an exclusive club whose members enjoy access to the finest vintages in the cellars, along with meetings with top winemakers, as well as tailored insights from Patrice Frank, Director of the Circle and the Wine Cellars.
For a more revitalising experience, the Thermes Marins Monte-Carlo offers up 6,600-m2 of space dedicated to wellness, fitness, beauty and preventive health. A heated seawater pool, hammam and sauna, fitness room with a Mediterranean vista and Thalassotherapy and hydrotherapy treatments are all on offer in a spa favoured by visiting F1 and tennis stars.
