Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda (1928-2019) was a Belgian-born French film director. She studied Art History at the École du Louvre and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts but also held a Bachelor’s in Literature and Psychology from the Sorbonne. While working as a photographer, Varda became interested in making a film, even though she knew little about the industry. Varda’s feature film debut was La Pointe Courte (1955), but her film Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961) established her name and became a landmark of the French New Wave. Varda wanted to make films in line with her time, rather than focusing on traditions or classical standards.

Related movies

Uncle Yanco (Agnès Varda, 1967)

Uncle Yanco

Agnès Varda, France, 1967, 18’

While in San Francisco to promote her latest film, Agnès Varda gets a tip from an acquaintance. In Sausalito, a town in the San Francisco Bay Area, there lives a Greek painter named Jean Varda. Could they be related?

Salut les Cubains (Agnès Varda, 1963)

Salut les Cubains

Agnès Varda, Cuba, France, 1963, 30’

During her vacation in Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power, Agnès Varda made a photo report about Cuban society and culture after the revolution. This delightful black-and-white composition makes the edit resemble a choreography and intermingles the photos with catchy Cuban rhythms.

Black Panthers (Agnès Varda, 1968)

Black Panthers

Agnès Varda, France, 1968, 28’

In 1967, Agnès Varda was living in California when one of the Black Panthers founders, Huey P. Newton, was arrested during a traffic stop for killing a police officer—a clear case of racial injustice, according to the Panthers. The following summer, Varda took her 16mm camera to a “Free Huey” demonstration in Oakland.

Réponse de femmes : Notre corps, notre sexe (Agnès Varda, 1975)

Women Reply

Agnès Varda, France, 1975, 8’

In this Second Wave Feminist pamphlet, Agnès Varda invites women, young and old, dressed and nude, proletarian and upper-class, to answer the question: What does it mean to be a woman?

Ulysse (Agnès Varda, 1983)

Ulysse

Agnès Varda, France, 1983, 22’

In 1954, on a Calais beach, Agnès Varda took a photograph of a man, a boy and a dead goat. Almost thirty years later, she returns to that image, the moment she made it, the way she remembers it (sometimes incorrectly, as she finds out), and the interconnections between past, present and future.