Prada’s iconic Galleria handbag takes a bold turn into the cinematic realm in its latest campaign, Ritual Identities, directed by award-winning filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Scarlett Johansson, who returns as the face of Galleria for the third time. Known for his signature narrative complexity and surrealism, Lanthimos brings his distinct filmmaking style to fashion, transforming the handbag into a living, breathing character within a cinematic universe.
Following last year’s collaboration with Jonathan Glazer, which featured Scarlett Johansson, Prada’s 2025 campaign reunites the Hollywood star with a director celebrated for films like The Favourite and Poor Things. For the first time, Johansson steps into Lanthimos’s singular world, where multiple versions of her character emerge, constantly shifting and evolving in a series of enigmatic rituals set against archetypical modern backdrops.
“This campaign is a play on identity, the identities that live within all of us, the different masks we wear, the different characters we play, the different people we are with other people, in different relationships,” Johansson told WWD. “The work becomes personally meaningful because you start to really feel it as you’re saying it, it starts to live more inside you – and then, you can really explore. This film is less about assuming a character, more about expressing different versions of myself.”
The campaign film functions as a microcosm of a full-length movie—each scene a blueprint hinting at a broader story, blending the handbag into a surreal narrative tapestry. Johansson enacts mysterious, almost ritualistic actions that transform her, reflecting Lanthimos’s signature thematic preoccupations with identity, multiplicity, and the uncanny.
Prada is no stranger to collaborating with some of the greatest 21st-century filmmakers. Last year’s Galleria campaign, also starring Johansson, was directed by Jonathan Glazer, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind The Zone of Interest. The inaugural campaign in 2021, featuring Hunter Schafer, was helmed by indie darling Xavier Dolan.
Lanthimos, whose films have earned multiple Academy Award nominations, including performances by Olivia Colman and Emma Stone that won Best Actress, brings a uniquely cinematic gravitas to the luxury brand. He recently premiered his latest feature, Bugonia, at the Venice Film Festival—a sci-fi black comedy about two young men who kidnap a powerful CEO, played by Stone, convinced she is an alien.
