Dear Shaded Viewers,
Naturally, being the founder of the first fashion film festival, I’m super excited to see what Gus Van Sant and Alessandro Michele are presenting to us tonight at 21h. I’m sure that by co-directing these films that they both learned a lot from each other. Michele has always chosen the best talents to collaborate with and this is quite magical.
Something that never ended is a 7 part mini-series directed by Gus Van Sant and Alessandro Michele.
AND CELEBRATING THE WORK OF:
AHLUWALIA, SHANEL CAMPBELL, STEFAN COOKE, CORMIO, CHARLES DE VILMORIN, JORDANLUCA, MOWALOLA, YUEQI QI, RAVE REVIEW, GUI ROSA,
RUI, BIANCA SAUNDERS, COLLINA STRADA, BORAMY VIGUIER, GARETH WRIGHTON
In Alessandro’s words:
THE CELEBRATION OF FIREFLIES
In these painful times, when the order of things is shaken, when the night seems to envelop everything, we have a heavy task: to succeed in detecting, in the darkness, the joyful presence of fireflies. Their trail, wandering and shining, creates a de facto dance.of love that opposes the night. From their solemn appearance emanates a bright light, full of desire and poetry, capable of nourishing life, even in the darkest hours.
They are not easy to spot. Their glow is weak and fleeting. Didi- Huberman reminds us that five thousand fireflies together produce the same light as a single candle. This is indeed the case. Their flickering in the dark is brief and intermittent. It vanishes furtively into the night, or disappears in front of the artificial light of a powerful projector. However,
we must not “believe those who paint everything black” (M. Gualtieri). Fireflies have not disappeared as Pasolini theorised. It is rather our ability to discerning them who have disappeared. Our eyes being blindfolded, we looked away. We gave up looking for happy prophecies and signs of hope. For too long we have dwelt on the wrong side of things.
When this risk arises, I feel the need to organise a party. A joyful, bright and promising gathering, a celebration of fireflies. In this space, ephemeral and rare, young creative minds with a vow of beauty will meet.They will exchange glances, bringing light boxes as a gift. I imagine this celebration as a constellation of fire-stones, ready to be set ablaze. A multitude of deep, expressive desires that can defrost a frozen world. I wish to go in that direction, towards that horizon. Because I like to question what has been established. Experimenting and undoing.
For one week, unveiled eccentric and vital stories will run through the festival. Stories composed of imaginative impulses and dreamlike signs. Stories that take an interest in the human being. I’ve always thought about the power of stories, this is their way of enriching us so that we do not give in to the inertia of language, to their ability to extend our own faculty of reflection onwho we are. At the end of the day, we are the stories we tell ourselves. That’s why I made the decision to let them dance on a big stage, all together. Even those that are wonderfully delicate and fragile, that are in danger of being left aside or falling on deaf ears. Even those whose faint flicker is reminiscent of a firefly.
It takes a lot of effort to build a new order and to germinate unusual connections. A slow and silent embrace is necessary. An embrace which today cannot be physical, but which by its cruel absence reminds us that we cannot do it alone.
Alessandro
