For the eighth consecutive year, CHANEL renews its partnership with the Deauville American Film Festival, reaffirming a connection with cinema that spans more than a century. For over fifty years, the French festival has brought together international talent, major Hollywood productions and independent films, offering a compelling perspective on the transformations shaping contemporary society.
Deauville holds a special place in the identity of the House. It was here, in 1912, that Gabrielle Chanel opened her first boutique, turning the city into a laboratory of freedom, elegance and innovation. In the early decades of the twentieth century, she was also among the first to recognise the expressive power of the silver screen. In 1931, she travelled to Hollywood to collaborate directly with the studios, helping to shape a new image of femininity. Actresses became privileged interpreters of CHANEL fashion, embodying the couturière’s desire to liberate women’s bodies and minds.
Among the highlights of the 52nd edition of the Deauville American Film Festival is Bunker, Florian Zeller’s new film, supported by CHANEL and presented in competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. The film stars House ambassador Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, reunited on screen following Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows. The cast also includes Stephen Graham, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Paul Dano.
Following the success of The Father, which received two Academy Awards, Zeller explores in Bunker the seemingly perfect life of Sofia and Miguel, an intellectual, middle-class couple living in London. She is an editor of foreign literature, while he is a successful architect. Their equilibrium is disrupted when a tech billionaire commissions Miguel to design a shelter capable of protecting him from the end of the world. The assignment confronts Sofia with a moral dilemma and gradually threatens the couple’s domestic harmony.
For the film, CHANEL collaborated with Sonia Grande, the two-time Goya Award-winning costume designer, to define the style of the two protagonists. Particularly significant is Sofia’s opening look: a draped red satin dress adorned with a camellia at the waist. Its vibrant colour and asymmetrical construction disrupt the neutrality of the couple’s minimalist surroundings, anticipating the tension and danger that will unfold throughout the story. Later in the film, the same dress reappears hanging in the wardrobe, like a silent and prescient witness to the upheaval about to enter their lives.
On September 14th the film BUNKER will be presented at the Toronto Film Festival, and Penelope will be dressed in Chanel.
