It was a star-studded celebration to wrap up weeks of filming on one of the most dramatic and remote islands in the Mediterranean.
But a post-production party thrown on the volcanic island of Stromboli forSir Mick Jagger, Dakota Johnson, Josh O’Connor and a host of other British and American celebrities has fallen foul of local bylaws and zealous officials. It was unceremoniously broken up by Italian police on Wednesday night.
The officers were sent in on the orders of the mayor of Lipari, a neighbouring island, which is the administrative centre of theAeolian archipelago, a scatter of impressive outcrops which lie between Calabria and Sicily.
He said the party contravened noise control regulations.
The intervention of the police was met, according to local media, with “perplexity mixed with hilarity” by 82-year-old Sir Mick and his co-stars, who included the Irish actress and singer Jessie Buckley, Saoirse Ronan, and Hollywood actressIsabella Rossellini.
Rossellini has a close personal connection to the island – her father Roberto directed the 1950 cult film Stromboli, which was shot on the island, and had an affair with its leading lady, the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, whom he later married.
Sir Mick and the cast and crew have spent the past few weeks filming an adaptation of an illustrated book called Three Incestuous Sisters by the American writerAudrey Niffenegger.
The book is about three sisters who live together in a house by the sea and vie for the romantic attentions of the lighthouse keeper’s son.
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Sir Mick plays the lighthouse keeper in the gothic drama, which is directed by Italian director Alice Rohrwacher. His son is played by O’Connor, who received plaudits for his portrayal of Prince Charles in the Netflix drama The Crown.
While on Stromboli, Sir Mick reportedly stayed in a villa where Roberto Rossellini began his affair with Bergman.
Row between the two islands
The break-up of the film party this week prompted a row between thetwo islands.
Rosa Oliva, the head of the tourist office on Stromboli, said it was a mean-spirited decision by Riccardo Gullo, the mayor of Lipari.
Rather than being “valued and supported” after a tough winter of bad weather and suspended ferry services, Stromboli had been “penalised”.
The celebrities should have been welcomed with open arms, rather than subjected to a “punitive intervention”, she said.
“From the mayor of Lipari, one would have expected a welcome to the guests, or at least a greeting and a thank you for their crucial contribution to the Aeolian economy and their visibility. Our islands live off tourism,” she said.
It is not known whether the reaction of the Rolling Stones’ frontman was annoyance or amusement.
Either way, he left the island on Thursday by private helicopter.
