Although the film “Couture” is set during Paris Fashion Week, it is primarily about the lives of three women, who are intertwined under tough circumstances. Among them, Angelina Jolie plays a horror-film director who is hired to make a film about Fashion Week. At the same time, she learns that she has been diagnosed with severe breast cancer.
"The basis is my own personal experience with cancer," says Winocour.
The film depicts how the director tries to deal with the news while still making her film.
"What I experienced myself is what the director in the film experiences. That is the heart of the film. All my films are intimate, but the more intimate the film, the more important it is to place the story in a world that is foreign to me. And since I knew nothing about the fashion world, it felt perfect. It was like ending up in outer space," says Alice Winocour.
Based on reality
Winocour spent a year and a half researching, meeting models, seamstresses and others in the fashion industry. Most of the film – the depictions of the models and their lives and experiences – is based on reality, according to Winocour.
"I wanted to tell you about a world that I knew nothing about and that felt very foreign to me," she says.
She was the first director allowed to film backstage at Chanel, and she did so without it feeling like PR for the fashion house.
"They accepted it. It was important for me to feel the realism, that this was a real fashion house from the inside."
Had cancer myself
The lead actress Angelina Jolie herself underwent surgery for cancer a few years ago.
"There's so much of the real Angelina in the film that it was a very, very powerful experience. It was a special film for her in every way. She also had to learn French, a language she didn't know before."
Winocour wanted to make a film for women who have suffered from the disease, to show that they are not alone.
"We've been through it, and life goes on. The film shows a woman who, in the midst of her illness, continues to be a woman. She has an affair, while at the same time shaving her hair."
Facts: Alice Winocour
Age: 50 years.
Lives: In Paris.
Profession: Director, screenwriter.
Previous films: Directed "Augustine", "Maryland", "Proxima" and "Minnas Paris". Screenplay "Mustang".
Current: In "Couture" which has a Swedish cinema premiere on 5/6.
