Not everything seems to be what it seams in DIAMONDS, Ferzan Ozpetek’s sparkling unabashed tribute to female stars of the silver screen and the costume designers and seamstresses who dress them.
The film begins more like a foodie movie with a flicker of Fellini, where a film director gathers his favourite actresses, those he’s worked with and those he’s loved, to an el fresco feast. He pitches a picture about women but he doesn’t reveal much: he observes them, takes cue, until his imagination becomes flesh and we are flung into the film he envisages, into a bygone era where the noise of the sewing machines fills a workplace handled and populated by women, where men have minor and marginal roles and cinema can be told from another point of view: the one of costume, its design, its fabrication, its ascension to the iconic.
DIAMONDS is a gem, a film within a film, exploring the passions, anxieties, heartbreaks and unbreakable bonds; reality and fiction percolates and melds, the lives of the actresses mix with those of the characters, the competition and the sisterhood, the visible and the invisible threads that course through the fabric of our lives, the personal and professional, the public and private.
DIAMONDS boasts a bounty of mature, beautiful women, ribald and rambunctious, disciplined and determined, flawed, yet containing twenty four carat character. The cast glitters with class.
A film about costumiers had better have a superb wardrobe and DIAMONDS does, courtesy of Stefano Ciammitti with frocks to knock your socks off with seam concealing, scene stealing creations.
Reminiscent of the films of Federico Fellini, George Cukor and Pedro Almodovar, DIAMONDS shines as the jewel in the crown of this year’s ST. Ali Italian Film Festival.
Festival tickets are now on sale. The 2025 ST. Ali Italian Film Festival presented by Palace screens in Sydney•18 September –15 October, Palace Moore Park, Palace Norton St, Palace Central, Chauvel Cinema
For information and updates, please visit italianfilmfestival.com.au
