Film files
Symphony in Diversity
The impressive enlightenment gained from a recent chat with dynamic Producer Extraordinare, Claudia de Lascia; ensuing true Insider intrigue regarding the production company’s most lauded film of 2019, entitled “Princess”…
TG: This past July 2019, audiences beheld the exclusive worldwide premiere of “Princess” at the Tenth La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival, wherein the film received a most impressive twelve nominations and two wins, for Best Actress, and Best Message! What do you imagine audiences took away subsequent to the exclusive premier screening? What elements of the piece made the most lasting impressions?
CdL: Twelve nominations… it was really an honour for us! We were impressed about the feedback the festival gave us on our work, and we couldn’t have been happier to screen our film for the very first time in this magical context. Honestly, our hope is that audiences took away the concept that a social and ethical issue like out film’s, born from a charity and formative project involving disabled kids, can look beautiful and be aesthetically patinated and visually compelling. We hope the audience enjoyed the beautiful work the collaborators did, from cinematography to styling… there are in particular two very evocative scenes: we hope people appreciated them, but we don’t want to spoil too much.
TG: As a fashion film, "Princess" is a most relevant and topical exploration of diversity and inclusion, in an industry with rapidly evolving perspectives and distinctions regarding standards of beauty. What do you regard as the most significant theme, or themes?
CdL: We primarily wanted to reflect and to make people reflect on the idea that not only fashion can be open to various, different, original and non-conventional people (which for sure is something good but also “trendy”, and as every trend it will pass) but also that those people labeled as “different” should learn to understand their special and unique kind of beauty in order to believe they can make it in the fashion world and in ife in general. Sandy - the protagonist - has to face a real training trip, through which she will explore herself and learn a lot about life, and as such this journey must have all the appearance of a fairytale: but every narrative passage and aesthetic embellishment is functional to the understanding of the theme.
TG: How is fashion an element or "character" in the piece? Is there a featured designer? How does the aesthetic inform the narrative or story?
CdL: Well, fashion is embodied both by the wonderfully monstrous characters and by the ethereal and stupendous female figures of Jo and Nina, who together represent Sandy’s enemy and what she fights against, but also her dream and her greatest aspiration.
CdL: There’s not one specific designer, the fashion items were put together by our stylist and costume designer Paola Daverio as an editorial, picking the best from the designers she though suit the project: of course all the sponsors who participated to this project with their unique dresses were fundamental to embody each of the concepts and messages we wanted to represent in the different parts of the film. Paola picked items from the famous Italian house of jewelry and creations in the fashion world for almost 40 years, De Liguoro and the historic Turin-based tailoring founded in 1949, De Valle. Other names include Alfonso Garlando, Alessandro Angelozzi Couture, the hat designers Pasquale Bonfilio and Giuseppe Fata, the designers Yojiro Kake, Fabio Porliod, Alessandra Rinaudo and Simone Tessadori.
When the story takes a dreamlike turn the “cloudy” clothes show the impalpability of the atmosphere, when the situation becomes terrifying and scary the costumes are voluminous or eccentric, combined in s surreal and grotesque manner.
CdL: The white dream dress was created by fashion designer Gilberto Calzolari – who won the Franca Sozzani GCC award 2018 for Best Emerging Designer – and the collaboration of Studio Cernigliaro, with 50 meters of silk by Clerici Tessuto (one of the most important world textile companies in the luxury fabric market) and tailored by Fashion Management.
TG: The brilliant Einat Dan created extraordinary artistry and wildly fantastic make-up for the production. How are her creations incorporated into the commentary on beauty standards in the world of fashion, and beyond?
CdL: We want to start answering from you last word “beyond”: Einat’s uniqueness and particularity in her way of working on faces and bodies is that she uses make-up, colors, glitter and other tools to make her creations something that goes way beyond beauty, it’s art without any doubt. Einat, together with the body painter Elena Bettanello and the make-up department team, worked on creating - especially on the models from the nightmare scene in the cave - a special kind of sublime beauty: she managed to give a surprisingly magnificent appearance to abnormally decorated faces that - if analyzed street to stretch - apparently had nothing to do with “beauty”.
Sad expressions and disturbing dolls, clown faces, total black eyes in the end all seemed marvellous. That’s how she embodied our idea of different beauty standards. Moreover, the work by our Hair & Wig Designer Elisabetta Flotta was crucial: she also did the incredible custom-made prosthetics, which was a necessary element to manifest Sandy’s diversity, something new and not attributable to the the traditional schemes of the “different” and “not beautiful”.
TG: “Princess" was filmed in with worldwide presences from cast and crew members alike. How was this collaboration both a challenge and a triumph?
CdL: “Princess” was definitely a challenge for us, a project we entirely dedicated to and we worked on for more than a year, something we believed in maybe more than we ever did with any other works, and also something we invested a lot on. We challenged ourselves deciding to make it happen, because we weren’t sure we could afford that and also we didn’t believe we could be able to gather all these great and talented people from all over to world to collaborate to our idea. In this sense, we can say that the biggest triumph was being able to attract and convince professionals with a priceless artistic value to take part in this adventure, to make them strongly believe in our goal as much as we did...
As mentioned, Jo Price and Nina De Lianin were crucial to the completion of and international cast and crew. They both jumped in on the project from the beginning, even before the shooting dates were set. We are of course extremely grateful they decided to participate beacuse of passion. Also, an incredible joy and satisfaction is that Madalina was able to come with us to La Jolla, to experience the festival and red carpet feeling for the first time (but not the last, we hope) in her life: we think this could be the coronation of a dream she lived from the beginning until today.
TG: As storytellers, for you, what is "Beauty"? Is it an ideal? A relative concept? Is it universal, or based upon a very personal perspective? And, the same questions related to fashion?
CdL: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; it seems obvious but it’s true. Something is beautiful when somebody says it is. And when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we are the first ones to judge our looks, and that’s when the process becomes active. Fashion is a visual tool for the creation of one’s identity, it is belonging, it is a definition of yourself. But even in fashion there are no universal standards of beauty. This is why, thanks to the fashion world, and thanks to the choices we make every day when we define our outfit, we can convey messages, attitude, ideas.
TG: Kinedimorae's productions are well known to present exemplary visuals heightened by a sense of surrealism, irony, and even humour. How does this film differ (or provide similarity) from your earlier pieces, such as the romantically whimsical “Casamorati”?
CdL: Princess tells the fashion-disability binomial through an ironic language with a hint of surrealism as our usual way to convey important messages, and as usual we did it in a fairy-tale setting. However, we felt that combining fashion and disability was risky and needed smoothing more. We decided to use the universal language of cinema adding a more simple and traditional storytelling, trying to explore the universe and the sensitivity of the so-called “different” in today’s social context. We wanted the film's message to arrive as far as possible and to be understood by the most diverse audiences, from the very young to an adult audience. To do this, we have chosen to combine the typical language of children's fairy tales but dressed with cinematic aesthetics in order to appeal to a more demanding audience.
TG: How would you describe your evolution as artists, storytellers, director, and producer? What is the biggest honor that you gleaned from last year's La Jolla?
CdL: As storytellers we look for challenges everyday and for every project. We firmly believe that the power of stories and their narration through images can convey important ideas and messages. We like to follow a particularly effective theory and structure about storytelling techniques developed by Chip and Dan Heath in the book “Made to Stick” based on the 6 points summarised by the acronym SUCCES, namely:
S(imple), U(nexpected), C(oncrete), C(redible), E(motional), S(tories).
We are very honoured and proud to have taken part to the 10th edition of La Jolla FFF. Festival director Fred Sweet was able to create a family of artists around this festival, and we can say now that we feel at home when we take part in this event.
The world of fashion has been deeply questioning itself about diversity and society has always elaborated its own "maps" of disability, continually marking the border between those who have a disability and those who do not.
Fashion is already accepting diversity and now the main brands in the sector want different things and above all they no longer require stereotyped icons, but are people labeled as “different” ready to accept themselves? This is where our work is concentrated. It’s not about society accepting diversity, it is about the “diverse” accepting himself/herself; and ultimately it’s about everyone of us accepting himself/herself.
As the curtain closed on Twenty Nineteen...
Kinedimorae was officially selected with “Princess” (and two other fashion films, “LA129” and “Unplugged”) at the Porto Fashion Film Festival.
“Princess” was also in the official selection at Sarajevo Fashion Film Festival, where Kinedimorae received two nominations for Best Director (Michele Bizzi) and Best Actress (Jo Price); Jo won the award as Best Actress.
Kinedimorae was featured in CinéFashion Film Awards and Madalina was awarded as Best Actress for “Princess”.
View the Official Trailer Here: