MUF – Cine Club x NABA
How Much Has Cinema Contributed to the Fashion Industry?
FAD Connection, in collaboration with Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA), took part in an event managed and produced by Montevideo Under Fashion (MUF), whose central question is precisely this one.
Montevideo Under Fashion is led by María Antonella, a Uruguayan creative director, designer, and fashion journalist based between Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Throughout the month of July, she explores the process behind creating a film series curated by people who, from different fields and creative perspectives, approach fashion as art — and audiovisual perception as one of its greatest driving forces.
For those who are not yet familiar with the project, Montevideo Under Fashion began as an annual event bringing together designers, garment makers, curators, and students focused on fashion. The result has always been a public fashion show involving approximately eighty people, including creative producers, designers, models, production assistants, and technicians. Their approach to production is distinctive: they borrow almost everything they can and work with very limited funding, relying on support from sponsors and the designers themselves, who contribute a fee toward production costs.
The event was never created with the aim of generating professional remuneration, but rather as a platform for showcasing the work of emerging generations.
Its greatest ambition has been to challenge what is possible. Last year, the team closed three streets in the tourist district of Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo, gathering an estimated 400 people.
This year, the project promises to continue exploring new circuits, new locations, and improved logistics. In preparation for a Spring/Summer 2026–2027 edition, the team expanded its vision by redefining itself as a cultural agency, creating MUF Collective and proposing a variety of event series aimed at promoting artistic culture and questioning whether fashion is art or simply a form of consumption.
The team is made up of visual and textile designers, communicators, and filmmakers. They aim to continue expanding, with the condition that the group remains multidisciplinary and constantly engaged in research. They are not looking for people who are already fully established or who fit a specific profile, but rather for individuals with the energy and curiosity to approach ideas from different perspectives.
Montevideo Under Fashion itself is an itinerant team of people who feel they do not know enough — and that is precisely what captures the audience’s attention from one edition to the next.
This is why FAD Connection and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) connect organically with the project, bringing together invited creatives and young professionals working across the film, art, and fashion industries. They trust that these encounters and screenings will always offer something unexpected.
Throughout the month of July, the series features films and documentaries that do not necessarily focus on clothing itself, but rather on the ways in which garments communicate through the symbols they carry, approached from an intellectual and cultural perspective.
On Friday, July 3, The Young Girls of Rochefort (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort) opened the series. The film was selected by Pervanche Cineclub, a group of three young women who, month after month, develop their own program of screenings, podcasts, and newsletters focused on cinema and archival research from Uruguay and around the world. They also invite directors, filmmakers, and film critics to take part in conversations.
For this event, the group curated the film because it portrays a specific era, its clothing, and the dynamics of movement through garments created for a musical. It also met the production budget, allowing the film to be screened under realistic and achievable conditions.
The following week, beginning July 7, Sofía Ortega, director of Elder — a second-hand and curation brand with a 10-year trajectory — selected the documentary The Store. While its synopsis points to a critique of consumer society, what moved us was the way it accesses each person’s sensitive unconscious: when someone acquires a garment, they also place part of their nostalgia and affection into that purchase.
Sofía curated the film because her brand’s motto is that she sells “old ladies’ clothes,” and this archival piece portrays eras that contain the stories and objects reflected in her collection.
In the following weeks, Montevideo Under Fashion invites audiences to watch Lost in Translation, by Sofia Coppola, programmed by Rosario San Juan, producer and editor of Caras Moda magazine; All About My Mother, by Pedro Almodóvar, selected by Majo Casacó, fashion photographer and graduate in Visual Arts from the Faculty of Arts; and Charade, starring Audrey Hepburn, selected by María Antonella and Natalia Lizarralde, members of the MUF team.
Tickets can be purchased by contacting @montevideounderfashion via Instagram direct message. Screenings take place at different locations depending on the week.
For further information please contact FAD Connection ask@fadconnection.com