First look at Gabrielle Union, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Alfre Woodard, Goapele and Adepero Oduye in Ava DuVernay’s short ‘The Door’Posted by Wilson Morales
February 8, 2013
Update as August 13 – Ava DuVernay’s short The Door to play at The Venice Days, as part of its Women’s Tales sidebar. Venice Days is a separate festival within the Venice Film Festival, running from August 28-September 7.
Here are the first looks at Gabrielle Union, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Alfre Woodard, Goapele and Adepero Oduye in Ava DuVernay‘s short film ‘The Door’ , which is schedule to premiere digitally on February 11 on miumiu.com.
DuVernay is the latest director to collaborate with Miu Miu on its Women’s Tales film series.
An exploration of the female journey, friendship and perserverence, The Door is the fifth in the series that interprets the way women view the world and fashion with a political slant. The cast includes Gabrielle Union, Alfre Woodard, Goapele, Emayatzy Corinealdi, and Adepero Oduye. The film — a little over nine minutes in length— focuses on an actual door on the modernist house of a main character (Union) who just went through a break-up. Friends come through that door to console her, and with their support, she eventually overcomes her sadness and is able to move on.
“The Women’s Tales” are hardly your straightforward fashion film fodder, as DuVernay explains to Harperbazaar.com, “Every time a woman makes a film it is a political act, in my view, whether we mean it to be or not. Films by women — whether comedy or drama, documentary or narrative, illustrate the human experience though a woman’s voice, through a woman’s eyes, through a woman’s creativity. Experiences which are often marginalized, fabricated or simply ignored. I think what Miu Miu is doing with this film series is wonderfully radical.”
In speaking with NYmag.com, Duvernay goes on to say more about the short, “It’s really a story about friendship among women. I think that women definitely have a special bond as friends that is hard to describe to men, and we don’t often see that portrayed narratively. There is a certain magic and mystery to the friendship of women, and that’s really what I wanted to portray. I think I am a little jealous of women who have great girlfriends as adults.”
When asked by RollingStone.com how she got involved in the project, DuVernay stated, “I have never done anything with fashion, but they were looking for filmmakers who had a specific point of view. And I must say, I’m a little spoiled. The first thing after Sundance was an amazing brand coming to me telling me, “Do what you want,” literally. It was my story, my idea, my choice of designs. They made designs for me. I used pieces from a specific collection. They told me if I need extra pieces that they would make them for me.”
In regards to casting Union and Goapele, the director of ‘I Will Follow’ mentioned that “The previous films [in the series] featured mostly models or tilted towards models, except It‘s Getting Late by Massy Tadjedin, and I wanted to push that further and have more of a narrative around it, more story. So, yeah, I wanted to pile in as many actresses as I could, and I wanted to do five. I remember Miu Miu telling me, “Are you sure you can fit five and tell this whole story in less than 10 minutes?” And we were able to do it. Gabrielle has this face, like. . . you feel smart when you look at her. She has a strength and intelligence about her beauty. It’s really captivating to me.
I have used Goapele’s music in my previous films, and she expressed to me that she was interested in acting. So I thought this was a nice way to move her into that.”
In 2011, Miu Miu debuted The Women’s Tales, a series of short films that Miuccia Prada commissioned from international female directors (Zoe Cassavetes, Lucrecia Martel, Giada Colagrande, and Massy Tadjedin), each of whom explored various aspects of the feminine experience in their work.
Duvernay is the award-winning director whose film, ‘Middle of Nowhere’ gave her the Best Director Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and the the first African American ever to do so.
Trailer
Behind The Scenes
The Door short film
