The best shorts in the history of the Fashion Film Festival Milano

Founded and directed by Constanza Cavalli Etro, the Fashion Film Festival Milano is an international event that celebrates the creative fusion of fashion and cinema. Yet, perhaps, calling it a festival is a bit simplistic, given that over the years it has become a highly expected moment of cultural meeting in which fashion films from all over the world are presented by their respective authors to express the changes that the fashion system is experiencing, through major social issues, such as gender equality, sustainability and inclusivity. Now in its eighth edition and in collaboration with the Chamber of Fashion, the FFFM 2022 will be staged from 14 to 18 January in a hybrid version between online streaming and live events, as with the two exhibitions in the Urban center space of the Municipality of Milan at the Triennale exhibition space. Among the fashion films is also included "A night at the museum", the short film whose art director is Jordan Anderson, editor at large of nss magazine, in collaboration with Moncler, in which, through movement, music and fashion, a group of women has forged a visual narrative that speaks of the decomposition and reconstruction of an artistic space of which they are both creators and an integral part.

Thanks to this event, the medium of fashion film is celebrated for its ability to combine artistic expressions, idioms, points of view, aesthetic and narrative codes. On the occasion of the new edition, here is our selection of the most beautiful shorts presented during these 8 years of the Festival.

72 hours in André Balazs’ Chateau Marmont - Floria Sigismondi

On Los Angeles' iconic Sunset Boulevard and inside the elegant rooms of Chateau Marmont, Floria Sigismondi filmed Kenneth Anger for a special edition of System Magazine. Kenneth Anger, the godfather of American experimental cinema, but also an occultist magician, an actor who spent the 1920s traveling around Europe with artists like Cocteau, Truffaut and Godard, the confidant of rock stars, such as Jimmy Page and the Rollings Stones ('Sympathy for the Devil', is said to be inspired by him) and an inspiration for David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and Harmony Korine. Kenneth Anger himself, 91 years old and a tattoo with Lucifer written on his chest, wears the Cruise 2019 collection by Gucci in the legendary hotel "Chateau Marmont, Hollywood", a place of scandal, glamor and lust that has often inspired Alessandro Michele in his creations.

Nirvana - Jess Kohl

Jess Kohl won Best Director and Best Documentary awards for her short film Nirvana, which was commissioned by the NOWNESS channel. An overview focused on the Koovagam festival, which for 18 days a year hosts the largest transgender gathering in all of Asia in the village of Villipurgam in India. Participants marry Lord Koothandavar, re-enacting an ancient venue, and then cry his death the next day through ritual dances and breaking their bracelets in mourning. The short follows the lives of some participants, including imminent marriages, sex work, dreams for the future and the difficulty of entering a social context that repudiates them.

Jumper - Justin Anderson

Jumper is a short film written and directed by Justin Anderson that tells the story of a middle-class European family whose lives are invaded by an enigmatic visitor. Set inside a modern 20th century villa in Spain, a setting that recalls the settings of Pedro Almodovar's The human voice for the saturated colors and suspended atmospheres, Justin's film focuses on a family of four whose lives are all individually connected to the mysterious visitor who watches them dining from beyond a glass in all its nakedness. The film, winner of the Best Music award, second Best Fashion award and first Best Cinematography award at the Berlin Fashion Film Festival 2014, is produced to coincide with the anniversary of the first 10 years of activity of the English designer, Jonathan Saundersla, whose collection is was the starting point for the film. Looking at the short film, it is impossible not to think of Pasolini's 1968 film Teorema.

Mourir Auprès de Toi - Spike Jonze

Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side) an adorable stop-motion animation that mixes dark atmospheres and black humor, created by accessories designer Olympia Le-Tan together with director Spike Jonze. The story takes place in the famous Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Co., where, after closing, the characters of the books come alive. One evening Macbeth's skeleton falls in love with Mina Harker on the cover of Dracula to the point of deciding to join her to join her, but a thousand pitfalls get in the way: he loses his head, falls into Faulkner's Sartoris and is swallowed by Moby Dick. Only Mina's intervention guarantees a happy, even if tragicomic, ending, when finally, dead and happy, they can be together. The books and silhouettes featured in the short are all works by Le-Tan, who has created an entire collection of felt covers inspired by the first editions of famous novels in an aesthetic that Tim Burton would love.

Silent Madness - Jordan Hemingway

Silent Madness is an immersive installation that marries Mowalola's unique Nigerian punk-inspired aesthetic and a great passion for musical expression. The protagonist drinks a drink that has allegedly been drugged and the result is a surrealist scenography that emerges in an explosion of color: technicolor lights buzz at 100 MPH as they morph into dizzying humanoid shapes, the skin is soaked in pearls of sweat and the heart beats as if trying to escape from the chest. Thus, the designer Mowalola Ogunlesi takes us on a feverish acid journey for her new short film directed by Hemingway to present the brand's SS20.

Le Mythe - Matteo Garrone 

Commissioned by the French maison and produced by Archimede srl (a production company founded in 2000 by Garrone himself), Le Mythe Dior draws on an idyllic imagination to unveil the new Haute Couture Fall-Winter 2020-2021 collection. Matteo Garrone once again stages his fairytale poetics to tell a story, a hymn to beauty and femininity, to the tune of the song composed for the occasion by Paolo Buonvino. The seamstresses of Dior's atelier are engaged in the creation of sophisticated miniature models conceived to capture the attention of customers who are nothing short of special, such as mermaids, fauns and nymphs, beautiful and ethereal women who seem to come straight out of "The Tale of Tales", perhaps the most iconic and representative film of Garrone's aesthetics.