Emma Corrin, Olivia Rodrigo, and Joe Alwyn, for starters, attended the El Affaire Miu Miu screening and dinner in Venice, but the there’s a lot more than celebrity photo ops to Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales project. The series was initiated in 2011 at the suggestion of Miuccia Prada, to showcase short films by distinctive female filmmakers. This year’s edition was directed by Argentinian filmmaker and producer Laura Citarella. Her short film premiered in Venice on August 31 during the Giornate degli Autori, followed by an intense two-day panel conversation program hosted by The Gentlewoman’s editor-in-chief Penny Martin. Discussions ranged from the highs and lows of independent filmmaking to the intricacies of the craft of acting, and speakers included actresses Molly Gordon, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Marisa Abela, Cailee Spaeny, Raffey Cassidy, among others.
El Affaire Miu Miu showcases Citarella’s talent for crafting atmospheres that are as unsettling as they are mesmerizing. The story follows an Italian fashion crew traveling to Argentina for a photoshoot featuring Miu Miu clothes, modeled by a woman who appears beautifully alien against the backdrop of the pampas. After a few days, she mysteriously disappears. The town’s all-female detective squad begins the investigation, and as they trace the model’s steps, they become increasingly captivated by her outfits, treating them as if they were exotic artifacts from a distant, unknown world.
Born in 1981 and hailing from Buenos Aires, Citarella is a strong emerging voice in the New Argentine Cinema Movement, and she’s also a producer at the indie production company El Pampero Cine. In 2022, her breakout movie Trenque Lauquen was nominated at the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti Awards for Best Film. The fact that it’s four and a half hours long didn’t deter the notoriously fastidious Cahiers du Cinéma from proclaiming it the best movie of 2023.
Ahead of the Venice screening, I sat down with Citarella to explore her deep fondness for mystery, her decision to create a film that runs four and a half hours, and her belief that patience is an essential artistic virtue.
Miu Miu Tales films stem from Mrs. Prada’s provocation to explore themes of vanity and femininity using clothes from the latest Miu Miu collection. However, your visual style and cinematography seem to diverge significantly from the language of fashion. How did you respond to Mrs. Prada’s invitation to join the series?
At first, I was very surprised. I had just finished filming Trenque Lauquen, a four-and-a-half-hour movie that took almost six years to make, where there were no costume changes—everyone wore the same uniform throughout. So, this was the first time costumes became a focal point in my storytelling, and it was a revelation to realize that costumes could serve as characters. However, I didn’t want to create a film where fashion was merely cosmetic. In El Affaire Miu Miu, the clothes function as forensic evidence, like clues guiding the narrative to its conclusion, while also serving as fantastical elements of a different universe. The movie is a detective story, but it’s more than that. As the policewomen search for the missing model, they discover her clothes left behind, scattered across the fields of the pampa or hanging from trees. They become fascinated, almost obsessed with the garments and their intricate details, as if encountering alien creatures from another world. Gradually, they begin to wear them, slowly becoming ‘Miu Miu-ed’ themselves. In a way, this also happened to me. In my daily life, fashion doesn’t play a significant role. In Argentina, we don’t have fashion brands, and I’m not connected with any, so meeting Miu Miu was quite fun and spontaneous. It was incredible—when the clothes arrived from Italy on set, everyone was like, ‘Wow!’ The fiction somehow mirrored our genuine sense of wonder at the clothes, as if they had come from another planet. They looked almost alien to me. When I first saw images of the Miu Miu collection before starting the movie, I found them rather mysterious—the details, the colors, the shapes.
It’s clear that your connection to the fashion world is not typical, and you approach it from a perspective that differs from the usual viewpoint. Could you discuss how this distinct relationship with fashion influences your work and creative process, if at all?
I would love to have more time and money to invest in that relationship and to deepen my knowledge of fashion, but sometimes you have to prioritize. Even though I’m not connected with the fashion world, like every woman, I spend time thinking about how I look and what I’ll wear. Fashion is so ingrained in our lives that we sometimes overlook its presence. But, you know, I’m a director, a producer, a mother, a wife, and a teacher—so many roles. I make countless decisions every day, and I’m tired from making them! But, of course, choosing what to wear is a decision you face daily. This movie has sparked a new curiosity about fashion in me.
You mentioned that Miu Miu clothes had a mysterious quality—what is it about the designs or the way they were presented that felt enigmatic or otherworldly to you? How did this sense of mystery influence your approach to incorporating the clothes into the narrative of the film?
Argentina is far removed from the world of fashion. We don’t have Miu Miu in Argentina—there’s a real geographical distance that adds to the sense of mystery. Unlike here, there isn’t that same relationship with fashion; it’s something unfamiliar. But everything you don’t fully understand becomes magnetic because mystery begins when you can’t easily explain or grasp what’s happening. We felt that with the Miu Miu collection, as touching such garments and fabrics isn’t something we’re accustomed to in Argentina. It’s a poor country, very far from Europe, and the cost of importing goods is astronomical, with customs being nearly impossible to navigate. Accessing clothes of that caliber isn’t easy for us.
Your films often explore themes of the unknown, drawing viewers into worlds filled with intrigue and unanswered questions. What is it about mystery that captivates you as a filmmaker? Why do you feel so drawn to incorporating these enigmatic elements into your movies, and how do you think they shape the audience’s experience?
Women tend to handle the ambiguity and mysteries of life better than men. We’re often more comfortable with the idea that not everything has a clear or final meaning, and we even find some enjoyment in that uncertainty. In contrast, men often seek logic and definitive answers, but sometimes, there isn’t just one answer. This perspective also resonates with how I see Miu Miu clothes—each piece has its own unique quality, with details and character, and a distinctiveness that doesn’t dominate or overshadow the whole. Miu Miu’s designer is a woman, and she shares this view that the world doesn’t always need a singular explanation for everything. As women, we understand the need for more democracy and openness, respecting our own pace to grasp things fully, and having the patience to do so. Patience is something inherent in us—it’s evident in the women in my films and, I believe, in life as well. We don’t feel the need to place ourselves at the center of every situation, avoiding that anxiety altogether. It was important for me to create a film without a single main character. The three policewomen are the protagonists; it’s a collective effort. The detective, Verónica, is a well-known Argentinian actress and a friend who often stars as the lead in her films. But in this project, she was part of a group. I wanted all three women to share the same level of importance and attention, emphasizing a sense of democracy and the free exchange of ideas. In this film, ideas belong to the group, which can be challenging for men to grasp. I had a male friend read the script, and his immediate reaction was, ‘Laura, where’s the main character? You need to have a main character!’
Is this idea of patience connected to your decision to create a film that is four-and-a-half hours long? How do you think the extended duration allows for a deeper exploration of themes?
Trenque Lauquen is actually a funny film. It took six years to make it, and during that time, the film became intertwined with the lives of the actors, as well as my own life and that of my family and friends. The extended production process allowed the film to evolve naturally, incorporating real-life experiences and changes. This deep connection to the passage of time and the blending of fiction with reality made the film feel like a living, breathing entity, reflecting the rhythms and unpredictability of life itself. There’s an interplay between time and rhythm that creates a unique experience. When you read a novel, you accumulate images, gradually becoming immersed in the character and their universe, and you start to want to live in that world. Literature invites you to inhabit the book or novel. When I was reading to my young daughter, she would say, “Mummy, I want to live in that book!” I feel that cinema has changed in recent years; it no longer invites you to live in the movie because the images flash by so quickly that you can’t form your own relationship with the story. Films don’t have to be four hours long, but I believe that cinema has the power to engage you in something magnetic and hypnotic through the use of time—a very feminine approach. For women, time is often a more fluid, extended concept, and there’s value in the non-productive use of time, which can be nurturing. As women, we’re finally embracing the fact that we have our own rhythm, our own breath. We narrate stories differently, and good stories need time to be told—and patience to be truly appreciated.
