This past Wednesday night, near the top of an island paradise located 20 miles off the coast of Naples, on the picturesque grounds of a 16th-century castle once occupied by Michelangelo, dozens of Italian actors, musicians, models, influencers, government officials and paparazzi — all dressed to the nines — along with a handful of Hollywood denizens, gathered for night four of the weeklong Ischia Global Film & Music Festival, which has been held every summer for 19 years.

(Full disclosure: your humble correspondent was invited to this year’s fest, and to prior editions, to serve as a panel moderator, and finally decided that this story was too colorful to leave untold.)