Sean Ono Lennon‘s directorial debut ThreeASFOUR: FULL CIRCLE, a loving portrait of the avant-garde New York fashion collective, is set to premiere at the Tribeca Festival Sunday night. The doc, co-directed with Brian C. González, is also getting a fall release at the Film Forum in NYC via new distributor Assembly Releasing.
ThreeASFOUR’s Gabi Asfour, Angela Donhauser and Adi Gil have been creating visionary clothing, drawing inspiration from natural forms and pioneering techniques, for over 25 years. The collective was initially established as AsFOUR in 1998 with Kai Kühne. The group’s work has a devoted following, a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, global museum exhibitions, and fans like Björk and Chloë Sevigny. But behind the acclaim lies an ongoing challenge in an industry that prioritizes commerce over creativity, which, Lennon says, drew him to the story of artists he’s known and admired for years.
“I saw them struggling with the commerce side of their business, and it was always shocking to me, and I think everyone around them, because the quality their work seemed just objectively beautiful and kind of staggering, and everyone saw it,” the musician, writer and producer tells Deadline. “But at the same time they struggled with kind of adapting to the industry.” Scenes of furious sketching, intricate designs of delicate cutouts and swirling shapes and fabrics, pinning, sewing and the bustle of runway shows alternate with fretting about how to pay the rent.
As is clear in the film, the designs are “very difficult work to hand out to a third party,” he says. “Every seam is curved and unconventional, so it’s not like you can just take one of their blueprints and send it out easily to manufacturers.”
He was as struck by the group’s dedication to each other and how their backgrounds — Asfour with roots in Palestine, Gil in Israel and Angela in Germany – seemed to shape a shared philosophy of peace, diverse perspectives and creative dialogue.
Their relationship, “how they work together and they make these clothes that kind of represent these transcendental ideas, politically and culturally” is a main thread in the doc and was impactful for him personally. “This may sound overly simplistic, but it was almost like the whole film was an extension of, you know, the peace and love ethos that I came from, and my family stuff kind of tied together. And that was a big meaningful revelation for me as we were making the film.”
He worked with González, and writer/editor Jenny Golden on filming for over five years.
“I have to say, making a film about your friends is very difficult,” Lennon says. “They were so generous, to be filmed and allow that to happen, but you know, it’s not comfortable having your lives recorded … I have been in those kind of situations, and it’s difficult, so I won’t pretend that it was an easy process. But they are happy with it now, and I think we’re all very excited.”
Assembly Releasing is a new doc-focused distributor founded by Jessica Edwards, Shani Ankori, and Emily Rothschild.
