Kino trifft Venedig
('Cinema Meets Venice')
Stories, food & drink,
concert and film
Donna Leon – US American, cosmopolitan, Venetian by choice and a Swiss citizen since 2020 – can look back over an eventful life. After studying English literature, she taught English in Italy, Switzerland, Iran, China and Saudi Arabia, worked as a tourist guide in Rome and as a copywriter in London. She lost her dissertation on Jane Austen whilst fleeing from the Islamic Revolution in Iran before she could submit it. She wrote her first book at the age of 50: the crime novel Death at La Fenice, inventing its protagonist, Commissario Brunetti. Thirty-one volumes have so far been published in this series, which has made her a best-selling author all over the world. The German TV adaptations of the Brunetti novels have become extremely popular classics. Donna Leon's crime series is an ode to Venice, her chosen home for many years, which she has also paid homage to in other publications from time to time. The programme, curated by Dieter Kosslick, attempts to get an inkling of the Venetian attitude to life in honour of the great author. It focuses on Donna Leon's memoirs and her Commissario Brunetti oeuvre, but also on culinary as well as musical treats inextricably linked to Venice.
