The Cannes Film Festival is about to get even more fashionable, as two short films – including Pedro Almodóvar’s highly anticipated “Strange Way of Life” – will debut next month from the newly formed Saint Laurent Productions, a film production banner led by its artistic director Anthony Vaccarello.
Saint Laurent Productions is being described as the first production banner operated by a fashion house, the new outfit is also developing projects by a wide range of diverse filmmakers including Paolo Sorrentino, David Cronenberg (with the previously announced “The Shrouds,” a project originally intended for Netflix), Abel Ferrara, Wong Kar Wai, Jim Jarmusch and Gaspar Noé. The second short film hitting Cannes hasn’t been announced yet; let the speculation begin. The plan is produce two or three films each year, with a possible expansion after that.
Vaccarello became the artistic director of Saint Laurent in 2016. In 2019 “Lux Æterna,” a strobe-heavy 51-minute film directed Noé, premiered at Cannes. Vaccarello was one of the credited producers and Yves Saint Laurent named as one of the production companies. Launching the new division, he says, gives him “the opportunity to expand the vision I have for Saint Laurent through a medium that has more permanence than clothes” (according to a statement).
The production company also furthers the connection between the fashion house and cinema, with Saint Laurent providing memorable pieces to Luis Buñuel’s “Belle de Jour,” Blake Edwards’ “The Pink Panther,” Luc Besson’s “Subway” and François Truffaut’s “Mississippi Mermaid.” Vaccarello has noted that the fashion brand was “always linked to cinema.” This is just making that link more permanent.
“Strange Way of Life,” Almodóvar’s second English-language short (after 2020’s “The Human Voice” with Tilda Swinton), stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as cowboys in love. It is, in part, Almodóvar’s response to “Brokeback Mountain,” a project he flirted with directing, and features many of the filmmaker’s key collaborators, including composer Alberto Iglesias.
Women’s Wear Daily first reported the news.
