Ava DuVernay, Chlo? Sevigny Talk Female Gaze, Agnes Varda and Claire Denis at Miu Miu’s Tales & Tellers Opening for Art Basel Paris
Ava DuVernay, Chlo? Sevigny, Cailee Spaeny and Cannes Film Festival president Iris Knobloch were among the luminaries who took part in the chic vernissage (preview) hosted by Miu Miu for its first ever Tales & Tellers spotlight during Art Basel Paris at the Palais d’Iéna on Tuesday.
Running Oct. 16 – 20 as part of Art Basel Paris, the exhibition showcases more than 20 short films from the Miu Miu Women’s Tales series, bringing the work to life with bespoke installations and live performances by actresses and models dressed as characters from each title.
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The retrospective exhibition, designed and curated by Goshka Macuga and Elvira Dyangani Ose, features Miu Miu commissioned shorts from the likes of DuVernay, Sevigny, Zoe R. Cassavetes (“Broken English”), Lila Avilés (“Tótem”), Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovi? (“Murina”), Crystal Moselle (“Skate Kitchen”), Carla Simón (“Alcarràs”), Catherine Martin (“Elvis”), Haifaa Al-Mansour (“Wadjda”) and Isabel Sandoval (“Lingua Franca”) – all of whom were on site for two days of panels exploring questions of femininity, vanity and the female gaze.
“It’s amazing to see other female filmmakers in a space and an exhibition like this,” Haifaa Al-Mansour tells Variety. “It gives us this sense of sisterhood and makes us feel more powerful together.”
Since 2011, the twice-a-year anthology offers female directors carte blanche to bring their visions to life, with annual commissions shared by established heavyweights like Lucrecia Martel and Lynne Ramsay as by emerging talents fresh from the festival circuit. If anything, the Miu Miu vote of confidence has often helped those emerging talents ascend within the industry, one early beneficiary explains.
“I had just won the Sundance Film Festival as best director, but I wasn’t offered any jobs,” says Ava DuVernay. “I didn’t know how Hollywood worked, and one of my few offers that came in was from Miu Miu. I didn’t even know what Miu Miu was – and I was able to learn about the brand, to meet [Miu Miu founder Miuccia] Prada, to work with [Prada director] Verde Visconti, and to be given a budget to tell whatever story I wanted.”
“That was my first engagement with the generosity and the grace of the brand,” DuVernay adds. “And I’ve enjoyed an association with them ever since.”
“I feel like I’m a part of a family, that I’ve been welcomed,” says “Zola” director Janicza Bravo. “The door had been opened, and it didn’t necessarily have to be.”
While the opening event celebrated the filmmakers with work on display, those same filmmakers wanted to honor career inspirations, with attendees shining praise on earlier trailblazers like Ann Hui, Chantal Akerman, Yasmin Ahmad, Lucrecia Martel, and Jane Campion.
Fresh off the shoot of Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt,” actor Chlo? Sevigny spoke in glowing terms about the film’s lead Julia Roberts, praising her co-star as “one of the most impressive people I’ve ever worked with in the movie industry.” Sevigny was equally effusive about a friend with whom she would love to one day collaborate.
“Claire Denis has always been very kind and generous,” says Sevigny. “Once, when I was in Cannes with a very controversial film, she held my hand on the steps of the Palais and gave me a rose to clutch, so I wouldn’t be so nervous. And I’ll always be grateful for her kindness and, of course, the gift of her cinema.”
Still, no single name loomed larger than that of Agnès Varda, who directed a 2015 Women’s Tales short and who remains a personal and professional inspiration for all in attendance.
“[She] was one of the greatest artists ever,” says director Carla Simon, calling Varda the event’s “guardian angel.” “She’s really inspiring, not only for her films, but also for the way that she lived her relationship with art and with filmmaking… I feel she’s here somehow.”
“I’m such a big fan,” adds director So Yong Kim (“Lovesong”). “I saw her in Los Angeles at Indie Spirit Awards, and I chased her down. I said, ‘You’re my hero!’ But she didn’t understand anything I was saying… She said, ‘Excusez-moi, I have to go to the restroom,’ and then she ran away. But it was a great moment for me!”
For all their shared inspiration, each attendee has a markedly different and uniquely personal take on the female gaze.
“First of all, it’s subjective,” says Massy Tadjedin. “The female gaze is always seeking subtext. It’s always seeking the truth of something, the subtlety of something, maybe what wasn’t obvious at the beginning.”
“We have this tenderness,” says Tan Chui Mui. “We have empathy towards our subject of the character we create, and also the world we’re portraying. We’re seeking a relationship… You don’t torture the character so much. You feel for them.”
“For feminine energy to come through, it’s really about being honest and real and from the heart and vulnerable,” says Crystal Moselle. “[That means] getting deep into the emotional state of where people are at.”
The opening vernissage proved an emotional – and sometimes surreal – affair once the filmmakers witnessed their own characters and creations leap off the screen and through the halls of a concrete Art Deco palace. The characters mingled through the crowd, standing out in the fashion brand’s signature bright and popping colors against a chic Parisian flock clad mostly in monochrome.
The exhibition plays as immersive theatre, blurring fact and fiction as attendees drift between impromptu musical performances and stand-up comedy sets as part of crowd half-filled with the very performers in costume in and in character.
“I was very moved earlier when all the performers that are reenacting the characters from the films gathered to dance together,” says Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovi?. “I actually weeped and ruined my makeup for the entire day! But it [left] such a strong sense of solidarity — and it somehow felt more real.”
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