It is a rare occasion to see the likes of Salman Rushdie and Olivia Palermo sidle up to the same bar, but that’s the sight that greeted several hundred moviegoers Monday night, when they arrived at the after party for the premiere of Columbia Tristar’s The International at the Guggenheim Museum—one of the film’s prominent shooting locations.
Among the crowd mingling on the blue-lit ground floor of the museum rotunda were the film’s stars, Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. A custom bar and centerpiece, built to resemble an installation featured in the film’s Guggenheim scenes, anchored the busy room. Columbia TriStar senior vice president of special events Alison Bossert tapped Chris Benarroch of Benarroch Productions to execute the event, and Bennaroch, in turn, reached out to designer Keith Greco to construct the bar and installation.
“Even during shooting, we thought about how we wanted to have the party here,” said Bossert. “It just seemed natural. Our only issue was the space, because you can’t take food or beverages upstairs, but everyone seemed fine with it.”
Everyone did seem fine. Half the crowd left the party at one point or another for an intimate tour of the collection in the rotunda, while music from DJ Lance Jordan blared all the way up to the sixth floor. Although many must have looked for spots where the film’s particularly violent museum scenes were shot, they weren’t in luck. The International recreated a set of the museum for most of the shooting.
The lure of late night art, and the constant flow of passed plates such as truffle white pizza from Restaurant Associates, helped many linger past midnight.
