Bucharest Fashion Film Festival returns between September 23-26 with the 5th edition. Lying at the intersection of fashion, film, and branding, the festival brings together every year professionals from the three fields, films, and special events.

The general theme of the #BFFF2021 edition is Transparency. The fashion industry, like many other fields, has been affected by the pandemic, with delays in production and shows canceled, thus leading to restructuring, adjustments, and a rethinking of priorities. The questions that the festival dares to ask, starting from its theme, are: Is there any fashion without spectacle? Is the sharing of intimacy a show in itself or a proof of accepting vulnerability? Are communication campaigns promoting sustainability really transparent?

The festival program includes contemporary fashion films, documentaries, and a selection of cult films that explore the role of costumes in creating characters and weaving the narrative. The films address topics such as the relationship between fashion and film or the clothing-man-society relation.

The feature films screened at BFFF are divided into two sections:

Documentaries: about prominent characters or pressing issues in the fashion industry. One of the films presented in this section is Helmut Newton: The Bad and The Beautiful (dir. Gero von Boehm).

Dressing The Cinema: Every year, the section brings together cult and art films coagulated under a thematic umbrella. For the 5th edition, it revolves around CAMP. Starting from the concept theorized by critic Susan Sontag, the films explore pastiche, theatricality, and irony in relation to fashion.

Another topic that makes the focus of #BFFF2021 is the Veil, “a controversial item, which often carries a political, religious and/or psychoanalytic significance and which over time has prompted contradictory interpretations in terms of politics of the gaze”.

Dressing The Body

The section, introduced in the previous edition and curated this year by NOWNESS, comprises short films, both documentary and fiction, which explore clothing from a socio-anthropological perspective, inviting to a debate about the meaning and role of costumes in people’s lives.

This year’s jury consists of Marley Hansen, programmer at NOWNESS, Grigor Devejiev, creative director at Jam Project, Marcin Kempski, fashion photographer, Sandra Bold, global creative director at Publicis Milano, Ina Borcea, fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar Romania.

Among the special events hosted by #BFFF2021 is the outdoor exhibition Based on a True Story: A Collaborative Investigation. The exhibition is meant to examine transparency in fashion, offering the public a starting point in “questioning authenticity in a world built on the projection of an idealized version of our identity”. Six artists are invited to delve into the controversial aspects of the fashion system like work ethic, consumerism, the authenticity of words such as “artisanal”, “storytelling”, “community”: Apparatus 22, Anca Adina Cojocaru, Maria Guță, Giulia Crețulescu, Prosper Center and Robert Antoniac.

BFFF Insights

Premiering this year, BFFF Insights is an industry event revolving around young talents such as directors, DoPs, photographers and stylists, whose portfolios will be evaluated by a specialized jury and then presented to potential clients and collaborators. The event is organized in partnership with 2029 Productions.

The public will have the chance to attend round tables, workshops held by international guests, new media installations, and feedback sessions on the selected portfolios.

Bucharest Fashion Film Festival will take place between September 23-26. For the full program, visit the BFFF website.

Melissa Antonescu

Writer, photographer and videographer. For Films in Frame she writes news about the latest happenings in the film world and brings to the readers' attention the productions that can be seen at the cinema. When she's not writing articles, she's photographing people in a small studio or searching for new cake recipes.