In Alice Winocour’s Couture, set in the Paris fashion world, Angelina Jolie stars as Maxine, an American film director who finds her life upended by a cancer diagnosis.
“It’s very personal to me, and women’s health and women’s cancers are very personal to me,” Jolie said during a panel conversation at Deadline’s TIFF studio. Jolie’s mother, Marcheline Bertrand, tragically passed away at just 56 from ovarian cancer and Jolie is an advocate for raising awareness around women’s cancers. She has also been open about her own experience testing positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation.
Jolie noted too, that Maxine’s experience in Couture reflects the human experience in general. “I think what I found most beautiful was that it’s how you live through these things,” she said. “Every single person watching can relate. There has been something in your life where you just weren’t sure you’re going to make it through, and you’re going to test yourself – you’re going to either fold or you’re going to push through. So, in many ways, it’s about life…. it’s not a film where it’s about sitting in rooms and deciding it’s the end of your life. it’s very, very much about continuing to live through life.”
‘Couture’
HanWay Films
Winocour said the film conveys how three women who seem very different can have very similar experiences in some ways. Ella Rumpf also stars as a makeup artist who longs to write, with Anyier Anei as a newly-discovered model dealing with conflicting messages between her work and cultural background.
“I didn’t know anything about fashion,” Winocour said of her research. “I spent one year and a half in the backstage of fashion shows. I met a lot of people behind the images, like models, makeup artists, fit models, also seamstresses. And I got interested by this world, and it was also, to me, the world of fashion is related to the fragility the idea of the passing of time. Because I think fashion is obsessed by this. It’s a kind of frantic race against time: next collection, next season… I thought about it as a memento mori, as a film about the fragility of life.”
Jolie speaks French in the role of Maxine but confessed that she’s “super shy” about speaking the language.
“She’s French now!” Winocour cut in.
Jolie laughed, saying, “I understand more than I speak. I have continued my classes, but I’m still super shy. In the months leading up, we did classes. Not not just for the lines, but to just be speaking.”
But, Jolie added, language barriers don’t matter so much when the meaning and good writing is there. “When something’s well-written, whether it’s in another language or in English, if it’s well-written, it just comes forward easily.”
To watch the full conversation, click on the video above.
The Deadline Studio at TIFF is hosted at Bisha Hotel and sponsored by Cast & Crew and Final Draft.
COUTURE
Section: Special Presentations
Director: Alice Winocour
Screenwriter: Alice Winocour
Logline: Anchored by a memorable performance from Oscar winner Angelina Jolie, this compelling new film from Alice Winocour (TIFF ’22’s Paris Memories), set in the Parisian fashion industry, weaves multiple threads of women and girls from Ukraine, France, and Sudan, in the lead up to a fashion show.
Panelists: Alice Winocour, Angelina Jolie, Ella Rumpf, Anyier Anei
Sales Agent HanWay Films (international), UTA Independent Film Group (U.S.)