Fashion and film according to Agnès Varda

At the first talk on the Miu Miu Women's Tales program, moderated by journalist Penny Martin, the conversation between three world-class female film personalities, Agnès Varda, Alice and Alba Rohrwacher, quickly turned to the role of women in contemporary cinema.

The two filmmakers, on hand for the presentation of the two latest shorts in the Miu Miu Women's Tales series - De Djess by Alice Rohrwacher (see the video interview with Vittoria Scarpa) and Les 3 boutons by Agnès Varda declared they were proud of having taken part in a project that now numbers a symbolic ten short films, with these latest offerings.

Agnès Varda thanked Miuccia Prada for providing her and the other nine women filmmakers this opportunity, and for making an investment in a field other than fashion.

Varda's unique vision of the world, which has found its place in film history thanks to her innovative melding of the documentary genre and fiction, assumes a different guise in Les 3 boutons. "I decided to make the core of the story the most widely used object in the fashion industry: the button." The bond with the land and the ability to pick its fruits and make them one's own, one of the director's favorite themes, can be clearly seen in the elderly collector who picks up things that have been thrown away and puts them in his private archives.

Indeed, Varda, who admitted to have misplaced countless things in her lifetime, believes that everything a person can pick up off the street has different meanings for different people. She also feels it is interesting to concentrate on a specific object with little value, especially in this troubled world in which things are often not attributed the value they deserve.

"When I saw The Wonders by Alice Rohrwacher," Varda confided, "I was struck by the film's tremendous realism and its theme as well: the production of honey, so similar to the lengthy process of creating haute couture. Society's problems are to be found in all walks of life, and she has managed to touch a sore spot."