With a meditation on girlhood Mona Fastvold’s film is the latest installment from Miu Miu

Premiering in New York, “Discipline” continued Miu Miu’s Women’s Tales series with a meditation on girlhood.

Cinefiles, A-listers, and it-girls flooded the lobby of Village East by Angelika on February 12. They chatted over champagne flutes and grabbed popcorn before taking their velvet seats, anticipating the latest installment of Women’s Tales, titled “Discipline.”

Miu Miu Women’s Tales is a 16-year-long commissioning project that invites female directors to interpret their ideas of womanhood for the screen. For Mona Fastvold – the Norwegian filmmaker behind the series’ 31st installment – femininity is about restraint, and finding freedom within it.

The screening was followed by a conversation among Fastvold, choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall, and Hailey Gates, all of whom have directed installments of Women’s Tales themselves. They discussed discipline and the ways clothing, movement, and femininity become learned acts.

“Discipline” embodies an idea many women have come to understand at some point: that to be a woman is, in many ways, to perform.

The short film follows a “butterfly-cocoon” structure, as Fastvold described it. At a nun-run boarding school in Northern Italy, life-sized puppets controlled by masked dancers waltz through their rigid routine in unison. Amanda Seyfried triumphantly emerges from the mass of puppets, unmasked and rebellious in her pink macramé dress.

Miu Miu clothing played a central role in shaping Fastvold’s vision. She wanted to make a film that felt “in conversation with a piece of clothing.”

The idea began with the puppets’ dress, inspired by one Fastvold wore to a press conference where she first presented her 2025 musical film, “The Testament of Ann Lee.” She described her relationship with the garment as “complicated.” During a moment of anxiety, the dress became a shield.

With her 11-year-old daughter in mind, Fastvold considered the way girls try on new dresses and new identities. “Wouldn’t it be exciting if you could physically play with that?” she said. From there, the idea of dancing puppeteers and puppets took shape.

Rowlson-Hall brought Fastvold’s vision to life. She instructed the dancers to lead with intimacy, to “dance through their puppet rather than dance with it.”

“I really wanted to feel that these dancers were dancing with their inner child and having a conversation with that child again, about what they were taught and what they would actually express if not given those parameters,” she said.

The choreography moves between control and freedom. By the end of the dance, the puppets are finally unharnessed, duetting with their 11-year-old selves.

Fastvold created the short film while promoting “The Testament of Ann Lee” and recruited many of her collaborators from the movie, including Rowlson-Hall and musician Daniel Blumberg. 

“How I work with Daniel is really similar to how Celia and I work together as well. It’s a lot of talking about the narrative together,” said Fastvold. “I wanted to elevate certain sounds… the touch, the finishing, and the fabrics.”

Blumberg’s soundtrack for “Discipline” is sporadic yet mesmerizing, leaving room for bird chirps, wind, and subtle fabric movements.

Gates asked Fastvold and Rowlson-Hall about their personal relationships to discipline. “There’s a little bit of discipline in everything I do. I can’t help it. It’s like in my bloodstream — my core and all,” said Fastvold.

Rowlson-Hall noted that she grew up in a Southern, religious household. “So, capital-D discipline.”

Fastvold doesn’t see discipline as entirely negative. “There’s also practicing something over and over — in terms of a profession or an idea — that makes you better at it, and that allows you to create something,” she said.

Like the schoolgirl puppets, women often wear masks and move through prescribed motions, trained to fit societal expectations. Fastvold’s film is a reminder that women can unlearn these patterns, shed their restraints, and begin to shape their own identities.

All imagery courtesy of Miu Miu.