This is the first costume designer to receive the Solothurn Honorary Award
Published: Thursday, Jan 18th 2024, 11:20
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For the first time, a female costume designer has won the Solothurn Film Festival's honorary award. She was almost born into the profession, says Anna von Brée in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency.
The list of films for which Anna van Brée has designed costumes is impressive. Two of them will be screened at the 59th Solothurn Film Festival this year: "Retour en Alexandrie" by Tamer Ruggli and "Les Histoires d'amour de Liv S" by Anna Luif. For van Brée, who lives in Lausanne, her encounter with Swiss director Ursula Meier was groundbreaking. Since Meier's first feature film "Home" (2008), van Brée and the director have worked together regularly.
"Anna van Brée is a costume designer whose experience, filmography and skills make her an outstanding ambassador for this important profession," said Niccolò Castelli, explaining the choice of this year's winner of the "Prix d'honneur". Castelli is the artistic director of the Solothurn Film Festival. Costume designers tell what cannot be put into words: the stories, desires and character traits of a character.
Born into the movie milieu
Van Brée was practically born into the film world. Her mother was already a costume designer, her father took over her grandparents' haute couture house in Antwerp and dreamed of becoming a comedian. The Belgian got a taste of the acting world at an early age. "When I was young, I was part of a children's troupe that put on a show once a month on Flemish television," says van Brée.
Initially, it was her love of clothes that led her to study fashion design at l'Académie des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp. She then went on to study staging at the Brussels University of the Arts.
Thanks to her mother's contacts and experience in film, van Brée was soon commissioned to design costumes for short films and theater productions. And, serendipity: During the shooting of a feature film in Belgium, van Brée became the costume designer. Her mother always supported these first career steps in a very practical way. "Together, we invented a completely new universe for this dystopian feature film," says van Brée.
To Switzerland for love
Van Brée moved to Switzerland because of love. At the end of the 1990s, she packed her moving boxes in Belgium and moved in with her baby to live with an actor from French-speaking Switzerland.
Professionally, van Brée is always on several career paths at the same time: as a costume designer for film and theater and as a director with her theater group "la belgosuisse". She doesn't feel torn between the two. "When I'm filming, I like improvising and the occasional stress; when I'm working in the theater, I like the longer-term stress," she says. In the theater, the dramaturgy for the costumes is created during rehearsals. "It's much more organic." Everything happens much faster on film sets. And: "When I stage a performance, that's all I can do." Then someone else has to take care of the costumes.
Collaboration on almost 20 productions
"Home" in 2008 was something of a breakthrough for van Brée. Her work has been in demand ever since. She has worked on around 20 film productions, such as the drama series "Les Indociles" by Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) and the film "Schwesterlein" by Swiss directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond. The film won five awards at the 2021 Swiss Film Awards, including Best Feature Film.
Van Bréé hopes that with the "Prix d'honneur" in Solothurn, she will now also attract greater interest in German-speaking Switzerland. "I think that my strict Flemish side fits in well with the German-speaking mentality," says van Brée. She will receive the honorary award on January 18 (today) at the 58th Solothurn Film Festival. "Retour en Alexandrie" will be shown afterwards.
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