CASE STUDY 02

Sofia Coppola Core

Who is Sofia Coppola?
Sofia Coppola (born May 14, 1971, New York, New York, U.S.) American film director, producer, screenwriter, and fashion designer known best for her films The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003) - In 2004 she was the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award in the category of best director. Coppola is the daughter of film director Francis Ford Coppola and artist and documentary filmmaker Elanore Coppola. Sofia was born in New York City while her father was filming The Godfather. She grew up in northern California and played small parts in her father's films, often under the stage name "Domino Coppola." Her first (and last) significant role was as Michael Corleone's daughter Mary in the third Godfather movie. The overwhelmingly negative reaction from critics and audiences to her performance pushed her away from a career in acting. Instead, in the early 1990s she briefly studied painting at California institute of the Arts dabbled in modelling, photography, and fashion design.

Career & Legacy
It was in the late 1990s that she created her first film shorts: Bed, Bath, and Beyond (1996) and Lick the alb (1998). In 1999 her first feature film, The Virgin Suicides, was released. Coppola herself wrote the screenplay based on the novel of the same name by Jeffery Eugenides. Coppola's next feature, Lost In Translation (2003) - which she wrote, directed, and produced -earned her an Academy Award for best original screenplay, a nomination for best picture, and a historic nomination for best director, the first American woman to receive that recognition. That film, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, was a runaway commercial and critical hit.Lost in Translation was followed by the less-appreciated Marie Antoinette(2006), adapted from Antonia Fraser's revisionist and compassionate biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001). Though it was considered a stunning cinematic display (it won the Academy Award for best costumes), the movie was largely panned by critics for lacking depth. Coppola returned to the fashion world in 2008 to design a line of leather handbags for the Louis Vuitton fashion house. In 2010 she released the film Somewhere, which won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion prize for best film, and in 2013 she released The Bling Ring.Coppola wrote, directed, and produced 2023's Priscilla, a biopic about actress and businesswoman Priscilla Presley. Based on Presley's 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me, the film follows a teenage Priscilla Beaulieu's courtship with and subsequent marriage to rock-and-roll icon Elvis Priscilla. Priscilla premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2023, and the audience gave it a seven-minute standing ovation.

Why Sofia ?
Her status as the daughter of one of cinema’s most famous filmmakers has led to accusations of nepotism, which is undeniable. Yet, she has proved herself to be capable of creating some astounding films that will be loved for a long time, there’s no doubt about that.To me Sofia doesn’t only embody a powerful and confident woman but to me its all about her passion for everything she creates.Coppola’s filmmaking career has garnered both intense criticism and glorious praise, yet what is undeniable is that Coppola knows what she wants to create, and succeeds in doing so.

Her eye for style, finding its root in modelling and fashion design earlier in her career, (alongside her friend Stephanie Hayman and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Coppola co- founded the clothing line Milk Fed) greatly influenced the intricacies of her film’s aesthetics. Her visual style is recognisable, alongside her constant exploration of certain themes, making her an auteur. I relate to her a lot as she is a person that creates from a point of doing case studies a pursuing projects on subjects that she’s has a deep interest in whether they are in trend or not. Her ability to unapologetically be herself is so mesmerising and it can be seen throughout her work and is something I look up to. Sofia is through and through a trendsetter and inspires so many people to be themselves and just to do what you’re passionate about, she creates these amazing worlds through her films that makes one want to be apart or even at times they are so in touch with realty that you feel like you in one of them.

Credits:
CD + Photography: Ruaan Vos + Klein Muis
Model: Hermoine Hunt-Davis
Production Asst: Thuli Sekati