They’re living “La Dolce Vita.”
A 138-year-old Italian-American social club has become host to Brooklyn’s hottest movie night — drawing hoards of young hipsters and senior citizens alike to share in a feast of decades-old cinema and homecooked meals.
Cinema Club Piacere, a monthly film club at the St. Mary’s of the Snow Society in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has been screening classic Italian-American flicks like “Moonstruck” and “My Cousin Vinny” to large crowds for nearly a year while serving up classic dishes like baked ziti, meatballs and sausage and peppers.
“People appreciate the authenticity of it, the uniqueness of the space: a lot of people are obviously searching for community these days,” said event founder Kevin D’Angelo, 36, who on the last Wednesday of each month holds Club Piacere — which roughly translates to “nice to meet you.”
“The mingling of different communities — intergenerational ones — is what I’m really proud of,” he said.
The event’s one-year anniversary, set for April 29, will be the club’s first watch of one of Italian cinema icon Federico Fellini’s films.
The familial fête, which features a rotating menu including oysters, risotto and spaghetti and meatballs, has become so popular by word-of-mouth that its last few events packed the massive hall to the brim with more than 150 attendees.
The series has also attracted local vendors and international sponsors like Mutti tomatoes, as well as outside volunteers who “just want to help out and keep the event going,” the founder said.
“It’s become a meaningful part of people’s month.”
D’Angelo, a filmmaker himself who grew-up going to the society’s events with his grandfather, first began using the storied hall on Graham Avenue as a screening location for his own films.
It was last April when he realized the venue could be used as a more general movie hall, catering to the increasingly-changing, heavily gentrified community around him.
“We had been around for so long, we’re a part of the neighborhood — but the neighborhood is changing, and I think it’s important for us to be acquainted with one another,” D’Angelo said.
“You’ll see tables of our senior members with a young couple from Bushwick, or like my mom sitting with my friends from Tokyo,” he said.
“You don’t really get that all the time living in New York. You can really be in a bubble.”
The St. Mary’s of the Snow Society, which started in 1888 and moved into the Graham Avenue hall in the 1950s, once provided vital mutual aid to due-paying members — including access to doctors, housing and other support for new immigrants arriving from the southern Italian town of Sanza.
At Cinema Club Piacere, he said, “there’s definitely a preservation of culture.”
“It’s been challenging over the years, especially since no one’s coming over from Italy anymore,” said society Vice President Alessandro Grimaldi, 27, whose mother has cooked up her own red sauce recipes for cinema club goers.
“But we’re trying our best, especially as descendants of the people that came here before us.”
“I think we’re figuring out what our identity and what our purpose is,” D’Angelo added.
“While we’re figuring that out, the more people that have a relationship with the space, the less likely it is to disappear.”
