MILAN — A Black lady wanders by way of the halls of a museum, stopping to look at work whereas a voiceover cites titles and descriptions, revealing the place that Western artwork has typically reserved to Black feminine our bodies.
One other Black lady strikes throughout the streets of Brooklyn, spending the day observing fellow Black ladies round her, her gaze transferring from a crossing guard to a commuter within the subway, from a musician enjoying a flute to a girl portray on a bench — all dwelling incarnations and trendy interpretations of the brand new Venus.
These are the 2 important segments of “Fragments for Venus,” the most recent quick film within the Miu Miu Girls’s Tales sequence, which Miuccia Prada launched in 2011 as a commissioning platform completely for feminine filmmakers, who right here have been invited to specific their very own viewpoint and examine the plurality of femininity with no topics briefed beforehand in order to keep away from restrictions.
A behind-the-scenes picture of the thirtieth episode of Miu Miu Girls’s Tales, “Fragments of Venus” by Alice Diop.
Brigitte Lacombe/Courtesy of Miu Miu
Repairing a deformed illustration of Black ladies is the main target of the thirtieth installment of the continued sequence, for which the model tapped Alice Diop. The acclaimed French director has been behind documentaries inspecting marginalized communities, together with “La Permanence” and “Vers la tendresse” in 2016, earlier than her breakthrough function “Saint Omer” impressed by a real-life infanticide trial of a Senegalese lady was introduced in Venice in 2022, the place it acquired accolades.
Now Diop is again to the Italian lagoon to unveil the 21-minute film commissioned by Miu Miu, which can premiere on the Venice Movie Pageant’s “Giornate degli Autori” on Saturday, earlier than being launched on the model’s digital channels and, like the opposite Tales, made accessible to stream on Mubi globally from Sept. 15.
“That is the primary time I’ve accepted a collaboration of this sort…as a result of, for me, a fee shouldn’t be sufficient of a motor to drive a mission. I want one thing extra intimate, extra visceral,” Diop advised WWD in a Zoom interview on the eve of the premiere.
“Nevertheless it’s arduous to say no to the provide to affix such a prestigious crew as a result of a lot of the filmmakers who’ve participated within the [Miu Miu] Girls’s Tales are amongst those that are essentially the most fascinating to me and encourage me essentially the most,” she continued, citing the likes of Lucrecia Martel, Agnès Varda and Alice Rohrwacher and defining “all the ladies who participated on this sequence crucial of our modern period.”
Alice Diop
Brigitte Lacombe/Courtesy of Miu Miu
Miu Miu first reached out to Diop greater than two years in the past, after “Saint Omer” performed in Venice. The director discovered the time was now ripe to embark on the mission as she has been spending a 12 months educating within the U.S. and been engaged on a free adaptation of the oeuvre of the American poet and artist Robin Coste Lewis.
Her Miu Miu episode was sparked by her curiosity in Coste Lewis’ 2015 poem “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” “which is mainly revisiting or questioning the place that’s given to Black ladies’s physique within the historical past of Western artwork. That is one thing that’s all the time been central to my work and appeared significantly pertinent to me to have the ability to query these points within the type of this movie,” she mentioned.
“We — Black individuals — come from this historical past of portray by which now we have been marginalized, objectified,” mentioned the director, whose movie desires to indicate that “we — artists, writers, thinkers — are right here now. It attests to the best way by which we are actually prepared to specific ourselves.”
To this finish, the movie features a monitoring shot of latest artwork, work, sculptures and pictures that’s an “homage to all of the modern feminine artists who encourage me essentially the most and sharpen my days as a filmmaker.” Tributes moreover embody Meshell Ndegeocello’s music “Thus Sayeth the Lorde,” which turns American poet Audre Lorde’ concepts towards injustice right into a poignant canticle that closes the movie.
A behind-the-scenes picture of the thirtieth episode of Miu Miu Girls’s Tales, “Fragments of Venus” by Alice Diop.
Brigitte Lacombe/Courtesy of Miu Miu
“I’ve been making movies from the margins, with a political intention of filming these margins, as a result of these are the individuals I come from. That’s my territory, my historical past,” mentioned Diop. “It’s why I work. I’ve been engaged on these questions immediately, yesterday, all the time. That is my path…if it occurs to coincide with the zeitgeist, that’s nice. However…it’s been the identical manner the entire time and I believe I’ll be engaged on these questions nonetheless in 10 years.”
Describing it as “my most straightforward and radical work so far,” Diop sees the quick film as necessary as “Saint Omer.” To make sure, there’s a consistency within the two, not solely within the themes but additionally within the forged, as Rwandan-Swiss modern artist and actress Kayije Kagame options in each.
“I all the time method my movies in the identical manner, which is to resolve particular questions that every movie raises. And to me, there’s no distinction between a three-hour movie or 20-minute movie, between a fiction and a documentary,” mentioned Diop when requested if there have been completely different challenges this time round.
A behind-the-scenes picture of the thirtieth episode of Miu Miu Girls’s Tales, “Fragments of Venus” by Alice Diop.
Brigitte Lacombe/Courtesy of Miu Miu
Ditto for her time in Venice. “Once you’re presenting a movie, what’s necessary shouldn’t be whether or not the movie is a fee from a clothes model or not…it’s how the movie can be acquired, how individuals are going to speak about it,” mentioned the director. “You’re form of on edge, there’s one thing feverish about it since you don’t know the way the discourse goes to be formed across the movie. So in that manner, there’s been no change between the 2 experiences.”
As for the response she hopes to elicit, Diop has no particular expectation. “Perhaps for individuals to show me issues that I hadn’t suspected I needed to say, or for them to expertise revelations that they hadn’t imagined they could have,” mentioned Diop. “After I make a movie, I’m trying to be nourished, expanded, made extra lucid. And that’s what I would like for the individuals who see it, too.…It’s one thing that you would be able to’t predict… One may additionally count on silence — a response that’s so deep that there is no such thing as a talking. That’s very lovely, as properly.”
“The movie is a type of thought that’s despatched out to be acquired in each manner. What’s magnificent about making them is that what you’ve put into it, it’s given again to you when individuals inform you what they’ve felt, seen and thought,” mentioned Diop. “I make my movies for different individuals to talk.”
Sparking a dialog can also be what Miu Miu is all about. As per its Venice custom, following the premiere and celebratory dinner at Palazzo Cà Nook della Regina — which homes Fondazione Prada’s Venetian outpost — the model may have Diop participate in a panel on Sunday. She can be in talks with fellow director Joanna Hogg, who labored on the earlier installment of the Tales sequence, titled “Autobiografia di una Borsetta,” or “Autobiography of a Purse,” and introduced in London in February.
The occasion can be flanked by one other speak between Miu Miu’s longtime ambassador Emma Corrin and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who’s a part of Miu Miu Girls’s Tales Committee that features skills from throughout the movie business, together with Prada. On Monday, will probably be the flip of actresses Alisha Boe, Sarah Catherine Hook and Myha’la Herrold to participate in a dialog.
A behind-the-scenes picture of the thirtieth episode of Miu Miu Girls’s Tales, “Fragments of Venus” by Alice Diop.
Brigitte Lacombe/Courtesy of Miu Miu
Subsequent up, Miu Miu will return as official accomplice of Artwork Basel Paris’ Public Program for the second 12 months, bringing the “30 Blizzards” present by experimental British artist Helen Marten to the Palais d’Iéna from Oct. 22 to 26.
