Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović is debuting her follow-up to Cannes Camera d’Or-winning “Murina.”
The acclaimed writer-director, who was nominated for three Film Independent Spirit Awards, helms Miu Miu short film “Stane,” part of the brand’s “Women’s Tales” campaign. “Stane” premiered at the Venice Film Festival’s Giornate Degli Autori on September 3.
The official synopsis reads: A complex construction site, New York’s skyline in the distance, and fresh betrayal. Stane is in charge on-site, soon to inherit the family business from her father, who built it up as a Croatian immigrant also building the American dream. But Stane’s marriage is under threat of demolition. What ensues is a public reckoning between traditional, patriarchal expectations made upon wives versus Stane’s own pain and anger. But Stane is building her own life story though — outside of the permission of men.
Writer-director Kusijanović said in a press statement, “In cinema I like to see women strong and vulnerable, and sensual. Sensuality needs to breathe through everything.”
Previous “Women’s Tales” filmmakers include actresses Dakota Fanning and Chloe Sevigny who have directed past installments of the series. Per the brand, the acclaimed short-film series invites today’s most profound and original female directors to investigate vanity and femininity in the 21st century.
Croatian filmmaker Kusijanović debuted her first directorial feature “Murina” at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film was executive produced by Martin Scorsese and went on to win the Caméra d’Or Award presented to the Best First Film, before screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and Hamptons International Film Festival and later debuting in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look Festival.
The family drama featured cinematography by “The Lost Daughter” and “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” director of photography Hélène Louvart,” and starred breakout talent Gracija Filipović.
Writer-director Kusijanović exclusively told IndieWire that the label of being a female filmmaker comes with a certain expectation or “harsh eye” of critiques.
“I very often got a note that ‘Murina’ doesn’t feel like a female film. The way it gazes at the female women, it doesn’t feel like a ‘women film,’” Kusijanović said. “I am a woman and I portrayed women as I really see them being. Just by me making it and seeing it that way, that is a woman film. I am not going to make it a certain way because the industry expects it.”
She continued, “They’re saying it’s so sensual how you portray a woman. Why shouldn’t a woman be sensual? We are sensual. That says a lot about our industry and fear from which we need to create and what our expectations are, and how things are sometimes branded wrongly.”
Watch “Stane” as part of Miu Miu’s “Women’s Tales” series below. “Stane” will be available to stream on MUBI globally September 4.
