When the filmmaker of 2021 Cannes Camera d’Or winner ‘Murina’ becomes the latest in a line of wondrous women filmmakers to feature in the beloved fashion brand’s series, the result is definitely something worth writing about!
I love it when things are unspoken in a film. While I’m all for having every moment explained in a political thriller or in world cinema dramas, particularly those directed by men, when something has to do with a woman’s story told by a woman, I can pretty much make out what is going on from the silences of the film.
And the latest short featured in the series Miu Miu Women’s Tales doesn’t need much explanation. In fact, you can watch it for yourself below, as all the previous 25 films are available online on the Prada site for free. The 26th short, Stane by Croatian filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, will be available to stream worldwide on Mubi starting Monday, September 4th, before joining the others on the Prada website.
The films are a collection of short jewels that live at the crossroads of two arts: cinema and fashion. It is a mythical place not everyone understands and yet cinema is such a visual medium. Miu Miu as a brand which is part of the Prada legacy, gets it completely, and the clothes in the films, typically sourced from their latest collections, never overshadow the filmmaking and vice versa. It’s a partnership made in heaven, as Kusijanović admitted during our interview in Venice, because the Prada team never interfere in the creative process.
Every year, the latest in the series of Miu Miu Women’s Tales screen as part of the Giornate degli Autori lineup, and the brand has also forged a longterm partnership with the festival sidebar. I sat down with the naturally beautiful and self confident Kusijanović in the courtyard of the Villa degli Autori and our chat was definitely a highlight of my festival.
How did this dream collaboration come about, as it seems you were born to be a part of Miu Miu Women’s Tales?
Kusijanović: That’s music to my ears! Thank you. I’ve always wanted to make one, and I was very very excited when they called me. It came through the Venice Film Festival and the Miu Miu Women’s Tales team and I confessed to them that I’d written another film hoping they would call me. We did not end up making that film, we started from scratch with a new collection and a fresh idea.
It is interesting that there were certainly manifestations in me.
You use your actress, Danica Čurčić from Murina again as the leading lady in Stane. Is it a longterm collaboration betweem you two?
Kusijanović: We made one film together which is Murina but after that I knew we hadn’t ended our dialogue. And I really felt that I needed to speak to her again through maybe a different character. Danica [Čurčić] always had an idea of what a mother would be and how she needs to be strong and give a certain push and maybe even show violence. And I always said “no, no because she’s so strong in her own way that it should be a little bit hidden and more about sacrifice and withholding.” And in the end, she really loved making the character in this way for Murina.
Then I thought, now she’s a mother in real life, and I am too — we were both non-mothers during Murina — and I though now it would be a great time to create together again and this time I let all of this emotion release. From a different POV and a different kind of mother.
So the dancing on the table, which is a violent act, and the ending which is powerful, are the product of this collaboration between you two?
Kusijanović: The collaboration with an actor always starts with the script. But then you need to allow the actor in the rehearsals to explore that script and that character beyond the screen. And Danica is so excellent in that. She creates a full bodied human and brings it to the screen. I’m very strict, in terms of when we start shooting, I want to execute not the first idea that happens on set but what we prepared. But I’m very excited about complete freedom and exploration in pre-production and the rehearsals. And I really feel I give opportunities for actors to bring in their own elements. Once that process is over, I like to go back to the script and I like that the layers of that exploration stay beneath the skin, while the structure remains as planned. It’s always a collaboration in different ways.
Which works perfectly here because there is so much that is unspoken, so much that we the audience fill in by watching the film. So this idea that the script is there as a structure but the feelings underneath are the current. A lot in your film is written but unspoken.
Kusijanović: Yes, it’s written but it’s unspoken. And sometimes I even write the dialogues with the intention of taking them out afterwards. Because the thought lingers even when it’s not said. We can do that with so many tools not only dialogue. Also with the costumes and the space and the music, and camera. But it’s really the best when you can do it just with people’s faces.
Speaking of costumes, clothes, of course this is Miu Miu Women’s Tales and it has to do with displaying some of the collection. How did you work with that beautiful yellow dress? It’s one of two magnificent yellow dresses in Venice this year. The other is in Poor Things.
Kusijanović: NOOOO [She claps] Damn. I didn’t know that. Wow. That’s incredible. That’s the movie I’m most excited about here at the festival.
My yellow dress, I think that it’s really incredible that there is a little film god. And synchronicity is everything. When I saw the collection of course it made sense that this was for this movie, this was for that character, If I were to design it from scratch it would not be different. The armor of that costume in the beginning that she needs, to enlarge herself and take space as a woman in that masculine space and then the layers come off. And I saw that yellow dress, and I said “oh my god, this looks like a first communion dress this is great!” This is what this character, who does not dress like this typically, would be given to wear for an event like this. It’s presentable for both state and church. And then it has this color, yellow, which is talking of envy and betrayal and then once she starts moving on a table, in that costume it totally takes over and releases and this dress gets so much power and you forget about the first communion look.
And finally, what does it feel like to be a part of this community, which includes Agnès Varda, Lucrecia Martel, Ava DuVernay, Miranda July, Naomi Kawase, Haifaa Al-Mansour, Lynne Ramsay, Mati Diop, and many more?
Kusijanović: Incredible. I don’t think I’m fully aware yet because I’m looking at it as me on the outside looking at them, and it’s really surreal and I’m very excited about it.
It’s almost like a promise that the best is yet to come.
Images by © Brigitte Lacombe, courtesy of Miu Miu.