Comrade Couture

John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger

April 2024 •English

Filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Tate Britain, London, the exhibition reveals Sargent’s power to express distinctive personalities, power dynamics and gender identities during this fascinating period of cultural reinvention. Alongside 50 paintings by Sargent sit stunning items of clothing and accessories worn by his subjects, drawing the audience into the artist’s studio. Sargent’s sitters were often wealthy, their clothes costly, but what happens when you turn yourself over to the hands of a great artist? The manufacture of public identity is as controversial and contested today as it was at the turn of the 20th century, but somehow Sargent’s work transcends the social noise and captures an alluring truth with each brush stroke.

Infinite Place

October 2024 •German

Loitz is one of those former GDR towns that still suffer from the effects of German reunification. For a year "Infinite Place" looks behind the gray facade of the seemingly dying town and questions concepts of home and identity through the perspective of its old and new inhabitants. The town’s vacancy and people’s urge for self-realization create a fruitful look into the future.

Stockholm Syndrome

June 2021 •English

Stockholm Syndrome chronicles the meteoric rise of contemporary trendsetter A$AP Rocky, capturing the exuberance of youth and urgency of hip-hop in equal parts, before taking a detour into darkness. With amazing access, the film reveals Rocky’s experience with the inequities of the Swedish judicial system and the dangers of stardom and scapegoating through a series of twists and turns, ultimately paralleling the need for prison reform in our own backyard. Directed by The Architects, the film blends archival footage with contemporary interviews, animation, and electrifying live concert footage to tell the astonishing story of how one of rap’s biggest superstars became embroiled in an international incident, leading to an unexpected political awakening.

Dresden Oktober '89

December 1989 •German

Soldier

February 2017 •Spanish

A young man decides to join the army. He becomes the drummer in the military band, and his everyday life is now a combination of military training and music. What does the Argentine Army do these days, more than thirty years after the dictatorship? What does it mean to be a soldier in a country without wars?

Dries

June 2017 •German

For the first time fashion designer Dries Van Noten allows a filmmaker to accompany him in his creative process and rich home life. For an entire year Reiner Holzemer documents the precise steps that Dries takes to conceive of four collections, the rich fabrics, embroidery and prints exclusive to his designs. As well as the emblematic fashion shows that bring his collections to the world and have become cult “must sees” at Paris Fashion Week. This film offers an insight into the life, mind and creative heart of a master fashion designer who, for more than 25 years, has remained independent in a landscape of fashion consolidation and globalization.

Anna Piaggi: Fashion Visionary

June 2016 •Italian

The world of fashion, between the end of the Sixties and the beginning of the Noughties, had a key character that embodied its spirit and told the tale: journalist Anna Piaggi, living witness of that contamination between art, society and culture that changed fashion and sanctioned its success on a global scale. The daughter of a manager for La Rinascente (Milan's iconic high-end shopping mall whose foundation goes back to 1865), Karl Lagerfeld's muse, "a poet with her clothes" in the words of Bill Cunningham, her life is retraced through interviews with designers (Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Stephen Jones, Manolo Blahnik, and more) together with archival images from four decades of fashion history.

1989, les trains de la liberté

June 2014 •French

Immer bereit

July 1950 •German

Documentary (in colour) about the first youth meeting (Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend) in East Berlin in 1950.

The Costume Designer

July 1950 •English

This short focuses on the job of the costume designer in the production of motion pictures. The costume designer must design clothing that is correct for the film historically and geographically, and must be appropriate for the mood of the individual scene. We see famed costume designer Edith Head at work on a production. The Costume Designer was part of The Industry Film Project, a twelve-part series produced by the film studios and the Academy. Each series episode was produced to inform the public on a specific facet of the motion picture industry. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

Martin Margiela: In His Own Words

September 2020 •English

In 2008, after a show celebrating the 20th anniversary of his fashion house, Maison Margiela, visionary designer Martin Margiela left the fashion world for good. Throughout his career, the Belgian designer remained anonymous, refusing interviews and never being photographed, leading some to call him the fashion world’s answer to Banksy. Now, more than a decade after his departure, Margiela digs into his meticulous and idiosyncratic personal archives to reflect on his revolutionary career and legacy.

Helga Paris, Fotografin

November 2019 •German

Wonder Boy

November 2019 •French

At age 25, Olivier Rousteing was named the creative director of the French luxury fashion house, Balmain. At the time, Rousteing was a relatively unknown designer, but in the decade since, he’s proven his business prowess and artistic instinct by leading Balmain to new heights. Wonderboy gives the viewer the rare opportunity to experience the inner sanctum of the fashion world, as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with this extraordinary individual while he works.

Ocana, der Engel der in der Qual singt

April 1979 •French

Legendary drag performer Ocaña in performance with a cardboard Marilyn on the west side of the Berlin Wall.

Fashion Scandals

January 2016 •French

A documentary on the world of fashion. Using archive material, journalist Loïc Prigent remembers the key figures and events in the wacky world of haute couture, which is not always glamorous so much as downright vicious.

Tunnel to Freedom

July 2021 •German

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

POSERS - The New Romantics

January 1981 •English

Shot in a single day, POSERS captures a thriving subculture in Kings Road, London: the style, music, and expression of the New Romantics.

Unknown Beauty: François Nars

September 2023 •English

Photographer and make-up artist François Nars reveals his visually stunning inner world in this feature-length documentary by filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland. Mr. Nars takes us on a tour of the fashions, designers and models of '70s Paris, the underground of '90s New York, and the timeless world of cinema, filled with actors, actresses, and directors who have shaped his visual aesthetics.

Beyonce & Jay-Z: Power Love

December 2021 •English

A merger of megastar music. Discover the story of multi-genre performer and fashion promoter, Beyonce Knowles sand the world's first hip hop billionaire, Jay-Z.

Dior and I

March 2015 •French

Behind-the-scenes documentary revealing what goes on inside the colourful, privileged, and sometimes stressful Christian Dior fashion house.