One by one, Harvard Square’s old-school haunts are slipping into memory. Whitney’s closed in December 2024, and Charlie’s Kitchen, which shuttered after a devastating flood in January, has confirmed it will not reopen. S&S Deli closed this spring after 107 years.
Pinocchio’s, the modest pizza-and-sub shop tucked away on Winthrop Street, remains. Now, the longtime purveyor of the square slice gets its turn on the screen in “Pinocchio’s Harvard,” a 20-minute documentary by Albanian filmmaker Valmir Tertini. You can catch the film Sunday afternoon at Harvard’s Boylston Hall, where Tertini will be on hand. The event, presented by the Harvard Albanian Students Association and Tertini’s production company, vivFilms, aims to shift attention from the university’s celebrated classrooms to the nearby gathering place where a mouthwatering slice and a casual conversation might provide their own education.
The film frames the snug pizzeria, which has been feeding Harvard and its surrounding community since 1966, as an essential cornerstone of life in the square. Known as “Noch’s” to regulars, its fan list includes Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Damon, Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu; some of their photos hang on the walls.
We’ve penned our appreciation in the past. Sixty years in business is a substantial run for any restaurant, especially in a neighborhood where each departure prompts another round of reckonings about what the square is becoming.
Tertini discovered Pinocchio’s by chance when he and his wife, Enxhi, walked around Harvard Square. She mentioned a well-known pizzeria nearby, and the name rang a bell: He’d heard it on the television series “Suits.” (The clip makes it into the film.) While Tertini enjoyed a slice, he met owner Adam DiCenso and asked whether anyone had made a documentary about the place. DiCenso said there had been multiple newspaper stories and television segments, but no documentary.
“What particularly attracted me to Pinocchio’s was its atmosphere,” Tertini said. “I didn’t simply see a pizzeria; I saw a place where students found inspiration.”
The notion of a documentary came into sharper focus when Tertini observed a student holding a slice and typing intensely on a laptop. “It was a simple image, but to me, it represented exactly what I wanted to explore: Ideas can be born anywhere.”
To underscore the point, a customer in the film wonders if Zuckerberg invented the Facebook “like” while noshing on a slice of pepperoni — his favorite, according to the film. Zuckerberg is featured in multiple photographs on the walls, enjoying pizza when he was a student.
Tertini was born in Kosovo, where he studied media arts, then earned a master’s degree in film directing in Tirana, Albania. He lived there for 11 years before moving to Boston two years ago. His first film, “Çaj Rusi” (2012), followed an economics graduate working as a taxi driver in Kosovo. Subsequent projects included “Cheating for Papers” (2016), about marriages arranged for immigration documentation, and a feature-length documentary about Albanian actor Bekim Fehmiu (2023).
For “Pinocchio’s Harvard,” reaching beyond the counter meant contacting some of the pizzeria’s famous patrons. Tertini approached both Gates and Zuckerberg. He received a response from Gates’ office, letting him know when the Microsoft founder would be in town and available to be filmed on a pizza excursion. Tertini also brought in food influencer Nicole Lee to offer additional perspectives on the shop’s pizza and cultural significance — watching the behind-the-scenes process of an influencer is riveting in its own right. Much of the film, however, is an intimate embedding with the affable DiCenso as he drives through the city, opens the shop each morning and engages warmly with his customers.
Tertini said that an additional screening is planned for early next year at the Brattle Theatre. Beyond that, he intends to continue with the festival run and eventually make the documentary available on streaming platforms — no online release has been announced.
“Pinocchio’s Harvard” screens at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, in Boylston Hall, Room 105, 5 Harvard Yard, Cambridge. Registration information is available through Eventbrite. And with Pinocchio’s just a short walk away, you can grab a slice before or after the film.
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