Fashion

Fashion Film Festival Milano to Support ICE’s Initiative in China

MILAN — The fifth edition of the Fashion Film Festival Milano has offered its support to the “Style Routes to Shanghai” project, aimed at showcasing a selection of Italian labels in the Chinese city during Shanghai Fashion Week running Oct. 11 to 17.

The partnership comes in the form of a short fashion movie produced by the festival committee, which will be screened during the upcoming edition of the event running Sept. 20 to 25 in Milan, in conjunction with the city’s fashion week, and also in Shanghai during the local fashion week.

The “Style Routes to Shanghai” initiatives was first established in 2017 with the support of White Milano trade show, and developed and supported financially by ICE — the Italian trade agency — and Confartigianato Imprese — the Italian small- and medium-sized fashion companies association.

The film was previewed at Milan’s Anteo Palazzo del Cinema venue on Tuesday and highlights Italian creativity with an inspirational journey across China and Italy. The movie was directed by the 2017 winners of the festival’s People’s Choice Award, Bonasia & Narcisi.

As reported, the Fashion Film Festival will showcase around 200 different fashion movies from directors hailing from more than 50 countries, including a few new additions, such as Finland, Venezuela and Latin America, Africa, Malaysia and the Far East. The event was extended to six days “because we had so many different projects to showcase that we wanted to fete our fifth anniversary this way,” noted director Constanza Cavalli Etro, the wife of Etro’s men’s wear creative director Kean Etro.

A scene from the “Kilon Shele Gan Gan” movie by Dafe Oboro. 
Courtesy Image.

“Our dream is to gift the city with a project about fashion and culture,” she added, noting that along with 165 movies running for the competition, a number of films and screenings out of it will enrich the event’s program. To wit, on the opening day the festival will host the Italian premiere of “McQueen,” the movie by directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui on the late designer Lee Alexander McQueen.

The screening of the “River Blue” docufilm, directed by David McIlvride and Roger Williams, which, according to Cavalli Etro, “spotlights the dark side of the fashion industry and of fast fashion, to raise awareness,” will follow on Sept. 21. The projection falls under the newly introduced #FFFMilanoForGreen series of initiatives aimed at spotlighting the culture of sustainable fashion. The theme is also extended to the competition with the introduction of the “Best Green Fashion Film” award category.