Premiering at Venice Film Festival this September, the film will explore the life of Salvatore Ferragamo
Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is having an especially busy year: in February, his short film The Staggering Girl – created in collaboration with Valentino – premiered on MUBI; in April, he confirmed that he will be directing a sequel to Call Me By Your Name; in May, he was linked to a Scarface remake; and this month, the trailer for his upcoming HBO television series, We Are Who We Are, starring Chloë Sevigny, was released – to much excitement.
As if that wasn’t enough for the director – who guest-edited AnOther’s Document in 2017 to coincide with his remake of cult Dario Argento horror Suspiria – yesterday evening it was revealed that he will be premiering a new documentary, Salvatore – Shoemaker of Dreams, at Venice Film Festival which takes place physically this September. Originally announced in 2019, the documentary will explore the life of Italian shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo, who rose to fame in the 1930s with his boundary-pushing designs – his legendary ‘Rainbow’ sandal, made for Judy Garland in 1938, was one of the first modern instances of the platform shoe in the West.
The documentary is set to follow his life from his beginnings in Naples to his early success in California during Hollywood’s silent movie era, and the later expansion of his eponymous brand back in Florence in the 1930s and 1940s. The film also will feature a number of members of the Ferragamo family, who will share anecdotes about the shoemaker, and look at the modern incarnation of the house. “It is an honour for me and my entire family that a director of Luca Guadagnino’s calibre would take an interest in our family history, adapting it for the big screen,” says Ferruccio Ferragamo, Salvatore Ferragamo’s eldest son and current chairman of the company.
The film – which has no widespread release date as of yet – is scripted by New York Times contributor Dana Thomas, who wrote the books Gods And Kings: The Rise And Fall Of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, and Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster.