The Miu Miu Women’s Tales conversation series

August 31st and September 1st were this year’s dates for three conversations at Miu Miu Women’s Tales, the project that came out of Giornate degli Autori’s ongoing collaboration with Miu Miu, its creative partner. These talks, designed to showcase women’s talent and creativity, were held at the Veneto Region’s Space at the Hotel Excelsior and moderated by Penny Martin.

First up was Scriptwriting that breaks the mould: Alice Diop and Joanna Hogg on blending genres in narrative, featuring the female directors behind the shorts Fragments for Venus and Autobiografia di una borsetta. They were invited to explore the narrative potential in challenging the conventions of form and genre.

Alice Diop shared with audiences where she got the poetic inspiration for her short Fragments for Venus, which looks at how a black woman’s body is represented in the history of art. The fountainhead was the poem Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis, and the short brings a fresh sensibility to bear on the visibility of black women in art. Joanna Hogg discussed her own Autobiografia di una borsetta, her aim being to highlight the role an object may assume in film, as a voice with narrative depth.

The conversation offered up a perspective on the infinite potential of contemporary film narrative, drawing on two separate visions united by a common aim: their redefining of the language of film and proposing alternative forms that endow a narrative with a new creative freedom.

The second talk, Classic tales, contemporary revisitations: Emma Corrin and Maggie Gyllenhaal look back in order to look to the future, honed in on new projects by these two artists who, in their own different ways, bring timeless stories to life courtesy of their radically new gazes.

Emma Corrin, the British actress known for her role as Princess Diana in The Crown, and now the face of Miu Miu’s new perfume, spoke about her commitment to the latest series to adapt Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. Corrin plays the lead character Elizabeth Bennet and promises to embody a modern femininity free from social conventions, in a narrative that tackles the themes of identity and inclusion.

Maggie Gyllenhaal – the actress and director who won the Best Screenplay Award at Venice in 2021, for The Lost Daughter – had much to say about her new, hotly awaited film The Bride!, which revisits the figure in The Bride of Frankenstein in a musical vein. She revealed that her new title is a radical and musical reinvention of the legend that is set in Chicago in the 1930s, and is ripe with social implications for women’s rebellion.

The dialogue between Corrin and Gyllenhaal was further proof that the classics, if freed from the shackles of tradition, become powerful tools for depicting the present.

The Miu Miu Women’s Tales conversations wrapped up with the third talk: The power of personality: Myha’la, Alisha Boe, and Sarah Catherine Hook, on creating performances that glue viewers to the screen.

Myha’La, Boe, and Hook are three rising stars in American TV series who delighted in sharing their ideas about the art of creating strong female characters and treated the audience to tales of their own experiences in the roles that brought them fame and fortune.

Myha’La, also in Venice for the premiere of the film Dead Man’s Wire by Gus Van Sant, discussed her character Harper Stern in the series Industry, which earned her the title “Breakthrough Entertainer” from the Associated Press in 2024, thanks to her skill at fleshing out a character of daunting complexity and ambition.

Alisha Boe focused mainly on her role as Jessica Davis in the series 13 Reasons Why, describing the challenges and the importance of depicting an act of sexual assault on screen – an experience she claims “changed her life”, since it enabled her to relate with many young girls and women who went through similar ordeals.

Lastly, Sarah Catherine Hook examined the overwhelming audience appeal of her leading roles in the series First Kill, Cruel Intentions, and White Lotus, in the age of binge-watching and crossing between different genres and platforms.

This final three-way conversation brought home to the audience the formidable power of the three young actresses as representatives of the new generation of female talent on the big screen and small screen today.