This is the first film festival at which content from the Annenberg Space for Photography will be screened. The 30-minute short film is part of the festival’s documentary program named Triptych which focuses on art, music and physical beauty.
The documentary, directed by Lauren Greenfield, was shown last year in the venue’s sweeping, unprecedented photographic exploration of how feminine beauty is defined, challenged and revered in modern society. The documentary presents interviews with selected photographers and subjects included in the exhibition.
The film’s subjects hail from the highest echelons of beauty and fashion in Los Angeles, New York and Paris, including: photographers such as Albert Watson, Melvin Sokolsky and Tyen; fashion models Crystal Renn, Carmen Dell’Orefice and Emme; and model agents Eileen Ford and Bethann Hardison. BEAUTY CULTURE also weaves in stories of aspiring models, a child pageant star, a female body builder, Los Angeles teenage girls and Cindy Margolis, along with commentary by writer Alex Kuczynski (Beauty Junkies), Harvard professor Nancy Etcoff (Survival of the Prettiest) and actor Jamie Lee Curtis. Together, they create a riveting exploration of the beauty culture we inhabit.
Through hundreds of images, the exhibit BEAUTY CULTURE celebrated photography while examining the issues the pictures provoke — such as the representation of beauty in popular culture, the narrowing definition of beauty in contemporary society and the influence of technology on the female body image.
