When I talk to Bella Freud, the fashion designer, former Vivienne Westwood apprentice and former Biba head-of-house, she's in the back of a taxi, laughing gently, and getting tremendously excited about next Sunday's fashion film showcase as part of the Birds Eye View film festival. As I'm a woman with the garmenty nous of Dame Edna Everage crossed with Wurzel Gummidge, I caught up with her to find out a little bit more about the relationship between fashion and film...

A fashion show is gone in a flash, whereas a film lasts forever

"When I made my second collection way back in 1990, I decided I wanted to make a film to go with it. I've always thought of film as a different, and better, means of communication. Because with a fashion show, you have a moment, then it's over. Especially if you're the designer – you're backstage preparing, then you have the after-show, a few drinks, and then everyone's gone. And as everyone's competing for their clothes to capture the imagination, I've always wanted to make the fantasy surrounding my collection last longer than a few precious minutes. Because that's what clothes should be about. You think of great films and the women in them that make an impact, for instance, and you realise the relationship between great clothes and great films."

Her first film featured some frocks, a car breaking down and the Jungle Book

"What was it about? Some girls going to a racetrack, having a complete disaster, and having to push the car home! I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it was great fun. We set it to this great Fats Waller song, You're My Dish, a song from the Jungle Book, a bit of Jimi Hendrix and Rick James' Superfreak. It was a mixture of moods, and it got its message across, so I've always been fascinated with other people who do similarly."

Her new fashion film's with John Malkovich

"It's about this story where a Japanese man has these leather underpants that blow up. It is! I've known John for a few years, he's so off-the-wall. Collaborations are good too, because it's nice to bring together an idea from a few different places. Saying that, this was John's idea, and it's so far removed from the normal, sterile world of fashion, I thought, why not? He gets into this carriage full of models and then his pants blow up – it's very silly. But the whole feel of it has a little do with the clothes I've been making , which are really 1920s and a little butch. I've been getting obsessed with this book, The Queen Of Whale Quay, about a 1920s lesbian speedboat racer, so my mind's been thinking of what women like her would wear!"

The ICA show also features a film by Ellen Von Unwerth featuring Kirstin Dunst, and a panel discussion with some other top fashion bods

"It's all coming together at the moment, and it'll be great. And I find it really inspiring that Birds Eye View are putting all these different elements of film together. Personally, I'd never do something just because it was about women. I'd only do it because it was good. And there's so many imaginative people involved, so many great ideas, it shows women at their best."

Fashion Films is on Sunday from 4pm-5.15pm at London's ICA. For more information, clicketh here.