Claire Denis’ “Avec Kim” Leads The 32nd Edition Of The Filmmaking Initiative As Women Directors Find An Increasingly Vital Platform Beyond Venice’s Main Competition
By Angela Baidoo
Now in its 15th year, Miu Miu Women’s Tales – a platform conceived in 2011 to both commission and empower female-led filmmakers exclusively – took place during the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival.
Premiering at the Giornate Degli Autori – the film festivals independent arm – an all-female jury was led by President Carla Simón. A former participant of the Women’s Tales programme in 2022 with her film Carta a mi madre para mi hijo (Letter to My Mother for My Son) during the 79th Venice Film Festival. Alongside fellow judges Italian filmmaker, editor, and producer Sara Fgaier, and Lebanese film programmer and distributor Hania Mroué. They will preside over a season where over half of the films premiering during the Giornate Degli Auto will represent the work of women directors, telling stories emanating from the female lens.
At a time when the festival itself is experiencing a decline in the participation of women directors across the male-dominated main competition. With only two films, Danish-Egyptian May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown and Rachel Szor’s NAZA (co-directed with Yuval Abraham), representing tangible female representation and competing with 20 other titles for the Golden Lion title, the work of Miu Miu and the Women’s Tales initiative is more urgent than ever, even after more than a decade.
Premiering on September 5th, French filmmaker and screenwriter Clare Denis’ short-film “Avec Kim” headlined this year’s 32nd edition, as part of a multi-faceted programme of premieres and panel talks that brought together this latest chapter. Heavily influenced by her upbringing in Africa across Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Djibouti – countries where her father worked as a French civil servant – Denis’ interest in cinema was sparked when introduced to the arthouse format at the age of 12.
The directors early years played a significant role in her later work that has dealt with provocative themes that confront the lived realities of colonialism, post-colonialism, race, and masculinity. The premiere was accompanied by an additional screening of director Mona Fastvold’s ‘Discipline,’ starring Amanda Seyfried. First shown in New York back in February, the short replicates the choregraphed movements that were central to the directors 2025 film ‘The Testament of Ann Lee,’ and was inspired by a Miu Miu dress Seyfried wore to the press conference during the Venice Film Festival. Previous directors have included Chloë Sevigny; Soyong Kim; Haifaa Al-Mansour; Dakota Fanning; and Ava Duvernay.
In “Avec Kim” Denis relies solely on the body to tell the story of femininity through a cross-generational friendship and the challenging of working women tropes. Starring Suzanne Lindon (actor and director, who wrote her first film, “Spring Blossom” at the age of 19) and Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth co-founder) the short follows Lindon on a sunny Parisian day – from breaking gender-coded stereotypes with her job as a grease-covered mechanic to mimicking the ubiquitous road trip. Performed, by both actors, without dialogue the short film relied heavily on the small gestures they were given the freedom to improvise by the director.
Continuing her visual language known as the “cinema of the body” the actors performed an easeful choreography of daily life, told from a female perspective. Where small acts of kindness, completing daily to-do lists, and the simple act of nurturing a friendship felt almost akin to achieving the elusive utopian state of slow living.
As with previous editions, the collections of Miu Miu play a significant co-starring role. In “Avec Kim,” the unexpected re-framing of the domestic/workwear apron from spring 2026 (amplifying the role of the women in both the factory and the home) felt perfectly suited to Lindon’s role as a car mechanic. Before transforming into a leather jacket and pants, that acted as if a second skin, shaping this new version of the actors identity – softer, but still tough.
