The 3rd Fashion in Film Festival: Birds of Paradise

Marketa Uhlirova curated the film programme at this major festival of film, seminars and exhibitions.

Included were the special film exhibitions Kinoscope Parlour and Moving Screen exploring the relationship between film costume, motion, spectacle and sensuality.

The programme interrogated how specific genres of cinema across the 20th century treated costume and adornment as a form of spectacle and ‘special effect’. The programme argued that historically, cinema has often drawn on costume as a privileged means of expression, thus showcasing to best advantage its own defining properties, namely movement/change, light and colour but also its ability to ‘fabricate’ fantasy and dream worlds. The programme drew new parallels between previously unlinked periods in, and approaches to cinema – early film (1894-1910); silent Hollywood and European cinema; American underground/experimental cinema - and their relationships to other modern cultures of movement such as dance, theatre, performance and the digital image.

Part of this programme were the following components: films season (touring), two special film exhibitions the ‘Kinoscope Parlour’ (touring) and ‘Moving Screen’; education series for young people and communities: ‘The Fashion in Film Workshop Series’ and ‘Kinoscope Blue Badge Walks’; education series, US: Seminar series at Centre for the Humanities and Symposium ‘Secrets of the Orient’ at Yale University.

The festival programme garnered a lot of press nationally and internationally, including The Independent, Women’s Wear Daily, The Village Voice, Another magazine, The New York Times and Fashion Theory.