Celebrating women behind the camera
As part of the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Venice Days section, Dakota Fanning and Saudi director Haifaa Al-Mansour showcased their short film offerings for Women’s Tales, which is a series of female-directed shorts, presented by Miu Miu, that explore life through the female eye.
Set in 1980s Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Al-Mansour’s The Wedding Singer’s Daughter is about a young girl straining against the restrictive gender norms of her culture. Fanning’s directorial debut, Hello Apartment, traces a woman’s emotional evolution “from the perspective of where she loves and lives.”
“It’s very important for women to tell their stories and sometimes it’s hard. For me, the little girl in the film represents the future,” explained Al-Mansour, “and the future belongs to outsiders.”
Haifaa al-Mansour and Max Brun attend the Miu Miu Women’s Tales Dinner during the Venice Film Festival (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)
The fashion brand first created its Women’s Tales program back in 2012 and has previously featured work from filmmakers such as Zoe Cassavetes, Lucrecia Martel and Chloe Sevigny.
In celebration of the screenings, Miuccia Prada hosted a star-studded dinner on Sunday September 2nd, 2018 at Ca’ Corner Della Regina. Guests included women of the hour Dakota Fanning and Haifaa Al-Mansour, as well as Naomi Watts, Derek Blasberg, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sadie Sink, Willem Dafoe and Tilda Swinton.
Here are our favourite looks from the 75th Venice Film Festival.
