EXCLUSIVE: In his final project before concluding his headline-snatching, decades-long tenure as creative director at Valentino, Pier Paolo Piccioli dipped back into film production to produce the costumes for Things And Other Things, the latest feature from Italian filmmaker Riccardo Vannuccini.
The indie UK-Italian co-production stars Greta Bellamacina. The costumes for Bellamacina’s character were designed by Pierre Paolo for Valentino, including a custom blue dress with a 6-metre train made for the film. You can check out a first look at the film and Pierre Paolo’s costumes below.
Paolo Piccioli left Valentino in March after more than 20 years at the house. The designer joined Valentino in 1999 with Maria Grazia Chiuri, his former collaborator. The pair were appointed co-creative directors in 2008. In 2016, Piccioli took on the role of sole creative director, following Chiuri’s departure for Dior. Things And Other Things isn’t Paolo Piccioli’s first foray into cinema. In 2019, the Italian designer teamed up with Challengers filmmaker Luca Guadagnino for the short film The Staggering Girl, starring Julianne Moore, Kyle MacLachlan, and Mia Goth. The film featured couture looks by Paolo Piccioli and premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The short was scored by the legendary Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Things And Other Things is also Vannuccini and Bellamacina’s latest collaboration following 2023’s Commedia. Things and Other Things re-visits Commedia’s characters of Irene (Bellamacina) and Rocco (Vannuccini) but finds them set free and wandering, at play, in a haunting post-industrial landscape- shot on location in the plains of Tuscany. The locations include abandoned buildings, a deserted theme park, a farmhouse, a slaughterhouse, and an abandoned school.
The cast is rounded out by Maria Sandrelli, Alessandra Piscopo, Alba Bartolia, and Gabriele Guerra. Things and Other Things is Vanuccini’s second script in both Italian and English. The original soundtrack is by the Italian composer Pietro Freddi. Director of Photography is Manolo Cinti (Così parlò De Crescenzo, Commedia). The film is co-produced by Artestudio in Rome and Sulk Youth in the UK.
Discussing the project with us this morning, Vanuccini described Things And Other Things as a continuation of his last project as well as an exploration of how “anything can happen.”
“Impossibility is understood as possible and the loss of time as time is taken away from the every day, from replication, from spectacle, from cinema,” he said. “Our heroes have managed to mysteriously escape from where they were – but where were they? They are busy doing nothing, making small acts, to leave imaginative traces of their passage, imagined signs of being in the world. Scratches, noises, silences, poses, runs, drinks, wounds, escapes, kisses, stealing. The world they inhabit is our own post-industrial landscape, a world scarred by the industry and sadness of the twentieth century, but in it they find beauty, and they create beauty. They are the archetypal romantic runaways.”
Check out the first look stills from the film and Paolo Piccioli’s costumes below.
The post Pier Paolo Piccioli’s Final Project At Valentino Was The Costume Design For Indie Italian Feature ‘Things And Other Things’ Starring Greta Bellamacina – First Look appeared first on Deadline.
