Maddy the Model

Maddy the Model
Director: Jane Magnusson | 95 min | 2020 | Sweden

“In five, ten years' time you are going to see every form of model on the catwalk and no one is going to blink an eye.”
– Rosanne Stuart, Maddy's mother

At New York Fashion Week in 2015, a young woman called Madeline Stuart took to the cat-walk and brought down the house. Something amazing and unheard of had happened.

Not because Maddy was thinner, taller, had higher heels and looked more depressed than all the other models. Because she was the opposite of all those stereotypes. Maddy was shorter, and happier than everyone else. She strutted down the cat-walk, did her pivot, and high-fived the front row celebrities on her way back.

Why?

Because that's how Maddy greets life – how she works, lives, and makes friends where ever she goes.

Madeleine Stuart has Down's syndrome, and 'Maddy the Model' is the film about her and her mother Rosanne’s campaign for inclusion.

Director Jane Magnusson filmed Maddy for four years, from Brisbane to China, to Uganda and New York, and back again.

Not everyone is as pro-change as Maddy and her mother is, not everyone wants to tear down the walls of restriction and conformity. But, if anyone can reform the multi-billion fashion industry’s definition of beauty, maybe Maddy is the one.

Previous festival selections include:
CPH:DOX