Act! Cut! Play! Fashion Films

On December 16 three brand new fashion films premiered at Lumière Cinema in Maastricht, and will from now on travel the globe in the international fashion-theatre-, film- and art world.  

Act! Cut! Play! is a new interdisciplinary talent development project that has the ambition to lift the quality of fashion films to a higher level. Three teams existing of a designer, theatre maker, and filmmaker from either the Netherlands or Flanders, where challenged to work together to investigate the possibilities and boundaries of their disciplines and the provided ‘format’ of the fashion film. With the incorporation of a theatre maker, the three teams where challenged to make the narrative an important element within the films.

Act! Cut! Play! is an initiative of FASHIONCLASH, Flemish Arts Centre De Brakke Grond and MoMu – ModeMuseum Provincie Antwerpen.

Project format
These three interdisciplinary teams collaborated on the development of three short fashion films from start to end. Previously, fashion films were mostly used by brands as a moving lookbook for their new collections. Over the course of the last years the fashion film has been on the rise: fashion film festivals are popping up across the globe. The films are becoming more innovative and visually striking, but what stands out is that in both national as well as international fashion films the narrative is under developed, and subordinate to its visual qualities. This is precisely what makes this an excellent opportunity to combine fashion, theatre and film and mold it into the right shape.

Première & Presentation
On December 16th the three films premiered at Lumière Cinema in Maastricht.
After this the Act! Cut! Play! films will travel all over the globe starting from Amsterdam at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (26 – 29 January 2017 in De Brakke Grond 28 January 2017 in de Westerunie), Antwerp (De Studio, 9 February 2017), Cinedans (16 -20 March 2017), FASHIONCLASH Festival (29 June – 2 July 2017) and several other stages including international fashion film festivals.

The films

‘Your approval is not essential’
Scheuller de Waal (fashion designers - Philipp Schueller & Rens de Waal), Jelena Kostić (choreographer), Leen Michiels (filmmaker, MosoTheCat) 

When a chance supermarket encounter unlocks untapped passion in an ordinary woman, her grey life quickly goes into sensory overload. ‘Your approval is not essential’ sheds a colourful, whimsical light on what happens when you let go of your inhibitions and – out of the blue – start embracing life’s quirky pleasures.

Your approval is not essential
photo: Nikola Kostic

The Parallel Pyramid Platform
Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck (performer), Daniel van Hauten (filmmaker),Emmanuel A. Ryngaert (fashion designer)
"The Parallel Pyramid Platform" is a highly aesthetic and witty game show in which sixteen contestants construct a gigantic pyramid shaped sculpture, working with and against each other, in order to make it to the top first. A film that explores the friction between the individual versus the collective. A never-ending universe in which, as the sculpture grows, blue becomes red. How one can only replace the inevitable void by start building.

The Parallel Pyramid Platform
photo: Joris Hilterman

iii
Suze Milius (theatremaker, House Crying Yellow Tears) Marie-Sophie Beinke (fashion designer) Femke Huurdeman (filmmaker)

In the world of iii, senses double themselves in order to make one woman complete. It's time to reckon with this shit! 

iii
photo: Joost de Haas