Super Mario’s! - Customer makes film about café

Published: 13 May, 2010
by AMAH-ROSE McKNIGHT

FROM slap-up lunches to the silver screen, life in one of Kentish Town’s most popular cafés has been caught on camera.
A movie documenting the daily drama of dishing up all-day breakfast and plates of pasta in Mario’s Café will be shown by film-maker Roland Denning at the Oxford Arms pub next Thursday.

An exhibition of photographs taken inside the Kelly Street café charting the 36 years it has been run by Mario Saggese and his family has also been prepared.
Mario’s grandfather ran the business throughout the 1960s until 1975. In 1989 Mario’s father decided to take on the family business again and Mario has watched the business become a much-loved meeting point.

“Roland Denning has been coming here for several years and one day he said, ‘Can I make a short film here?’,” said Mr Saggese. “He turned up the next day with a camera and started filming stuff, but it wasn’t too intrusive. He spent five or six hours one day and eight hours the next over the period of a month.”

The film shows footage shot over a month, opening with Mario opening up for the day. It includes footage of regular Eddie King who sometimes arrives at the cafe with his portable 1950s record player and treats diners to his collection of rare rock’n’roll 45s.
Mr Saggese said: “Things have changed a little bit, but I still think Kentish Town retains this magic, it hasn’t lost that special something.”

• Roland Denning’s film Mario the Movie will be shown at the Oxford Arms, 256 Kentish Town Road, NW5 on Thursday, May 20 at 7pm and 9pm. The exhibition runs until June 6 at Mario’s, 6 Kelly Street, NW1.