FFFMILANO 6th EDITION
9th November, 2019
Milan – at the Anteo Palazzo del Cinema – the iconic intellectual location of the Milanese cinema in the heart of the Brera district. One of the coolest international events created by Constanza Cavalli Etro has now reached its sixth edition, with Giorgio Armani as president of the international jury.
Every year FFFMilano receives more than a thousand fashion films from sixty countries around the world, even if the official selection consists of two hundred fashion films, not only of emerging talents, but also of established names among directors, brands and actors.
I take part in the Conversation + Special Screening “The Gaze of the Future Fashion Film Contest” in partnership with Istituto Marangoni (Educational partner of the FFF Milan) where initially an interesting conversation between Constanza Cavalli Etro, Anna Dello Russo, Andrea Pompilio and Angelo kicks off Ruggeri as moderator about the role and importance of fashion films in today’s society. Far from being a commercial ad, the fashion film tells the story of fashion, but broadening the vision of the world and the contemporary world. It is the new means of communication used by the fashion world to express itself in the digital age. Fashion, like cinema, is expression and communication. It is a tool to express what one is or what one wants to be, as stated by Constanza Cavalli Etro during his speech. Anna Dello Russo is volcanic and passionate when he says that we all want to communicate and that video is the modern language par excellence. Just think of the Instagram Stories, so popular at the moment, not just among the new generations. With Instagram we are all editors and directors of our lives on social media. According to Dello Russo, Constanza Cavalli Etro is a pioneer since he focused his attention on this new video language, so important not only for fashion, but today, creating the Fashion Film Festival. Fashion is a dream and even the film. Both are forms of emotion, as Andrea Pompilio states.
“The Gaze of the Future Fashion Film Contest” is an international competition, promoted by the Istituto Marangoni, aimed at young talents from all school locations called to express their vision of using the movie as an expressive tool linked to the world of fashion. Thus the vision of the top ten selected proposals kicks off and the three finalists are then nominated:
- Bibiana Gonzalez with “Sois Sage, ô Ma Douleur” (Mexico)
- Mariah Cidral with “Mars 2050” (France)
- Fabio Princigallo with “In a world of ethnicities” (Italy)
The winner is Fabio Princigallo with “In un mondo di etnie” (this video is an invitation to enter the culture of Morocco, demonstrating the presence of Maghreb traditions also in Milanese life).
This year the selected fashion films are divided into eleven categories: AWARENESS AND CHANGE I, AWARENESS AND CHANGE II, CELEBRATION, CLEAN CUT, DREAM ON, FUNNY VALENTINE, GODDESS, ODDITY, ORBITS, PORTRAITS and YOUTH.
In the CLEAN CUT category (a curated selection presenting short films with a clean and severe aesthetic) I found the fashion film DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY (Italy) fascinating, a tribute to the 1947 experimental film by Hans Richter, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp , Alexander Calder and Fernand Léger. A remake of the seven surreal dream sequences filmed at Villa Panza, with CC-TAPIS carpets and model Hebe Witte. Created by Motel 409 and directed by Lorenzo Gironi.
PLATEAU (France / Italy) is the first of a series of short films produced and directed by Victor Bastidas, with the dancer of Voguing, Kevin Table. Bastidas wants to explore art in all its forms as a meditation tool to counteract the negative feelings of the contemporary world. The sequence is composed of moments that happen in the present, in the past and in the future, mixed together to evoke the idea of a sort of journey. Made as if it were a musical video clip, the film combines the filming of the rooftops of the buildings of the Parisian suburbs, with the sculptural and almost mechanical figures of the dancer Kevin Table with Santoni’s Innova sneakers on his feet.