Do you ever have that feeling when you have finally dragged yourself to the gym in efforts to make your new year’s resolution last at least longer than a month, and you are trying to look confident on the treadmill, finding yourself surrounded by marathon runners and fitness fanatics while the television is stuck on BBC Two’s Gardener’s World, and you just want to step into a time machine and go back a few decades? Film Fatale gives you the opportunity to travel back to 1940s Morocco, with a red-carpet screening of the Oscar-winning film Casablanca. Join the team on their journey to Casablanca, where the high-class society spends their days in the Moroccan sun and their evenings in Rick’s Café Americain. Venture to a time of immaculate dressing and watery eyes and a daily life that is accompanied by dramatic violin music.
For six years, Film Fatale has organised several vintage parties in Dublin to take their audience back to the most extravagant periods of the 20th century. Their events are about vintage costumes, classic film screenings, swinging live music and fancy cocktails. One is not supposed to sit and watch, but instead is encouraged to become part of the event by immersing themselves in the roaring 20s, “Dirty “30s” or, in this case, 1940s Casablanca.
Casablanca is the dramatic war story of Rick and Ilsa. During World War II, many refugees used Morocco as a safe haven to obtain an exit visa and eventually leave for America. Rick owns the successful nightclub, Rick’s Café Americain, where the refugees forget their worries for a night and sing along with the engaging piano songs of Sam, played by Dooley Wilson. One night, a regular customer leaves two exit visas for Rick to care for. However, the customer is arrested and Rick stays behind with the two visas. Then, a wanted underground leader, named Victor Laszlo and his beautiful wife, Ilsa, enter the café, hoping that Rick can help them by giving them the visas. What Victor doesn’t know, is that years ago, Rick and Ilsa spent a magical summer together in Paris. What happened in Paris? And will Rick help the couple, while suffering from a broken heart and encircled by the Gestapo?
Film Fatale will bring Rick’s Café Americain to life for one night in the slightly less sunny, but ever so vibrant, city of Dublin. Number Twenty Two will be the set of this event. With its Persian carpets North African-leaded glass windows and a wide variety of cocktails, it’s the perfect location to make you feel like high-class Casablanca again. It may be useful to practice your elegant crying-with-one-perfect-tear-running-down-cheek-skills if you’re really going for it. Without doubt, any aspiring Ricks in attendance must have a well-rehearsed “Here’s looking at you, kid” at the ready.
A three-course a la carte meal will also be served during the film. After the screening, you can dance the night away to live music from the Tin Pan Alley and The Andrews Sisters’ Brothers. Unfortunately, Dooley Wilson can’t make it to the event, so you’ll have to manage without his famous “Knock on Wood” crowd-pleaser. But surely you won’t miss him with these swinging stand-ins. Make sure your shoes are not too uncomfortable and you have a free hand for a champagne cocktail, because there is no way you’ll be able to sit still at this event.
A week later, you might find yourself back on the dreaded treadmill, but this time it won’t be as bad. With the French anthem blaring through your headphones and some curls remaining in your hair, you’ll still be thinking of your little trip to Casablanca.
