Varda par Agnès

Varda by Agnès
Agnès Varda takes a seat on a theatre stage. This professional photographer, installation artist and pioneer of the Nouvelle Vague is an institution of French cinema but a fierce opponent of any kind of institutional thinking. In this film, she offers insights into her oeuvre, using excerpts from her work to illustrate – more associatively than chronologically – her artistic visions and ideas. Her lively, anecdote-rich and clever talk is divided into two sections. Firstly, she elucidates her ‘analogue period’ from 1954 to 2000, in which the director is in the foreground. This was the young woman who set out to reinvent cinema, someone who was always open to chance and to moments of documentary, even in fiction; who, with every new film, changed her narrative style. In the second part, Agnès Varda focuses on the years from 2000 to 2018, and shows how she uses digital technology to look at the world in her own, unique way.
Whether in front of the camera or behind it, Agnès Varda is a visual storyteller who eschews convention and prescribed approaches to drama. Together with some of her fellow travellers, she takes the audience on a journey through her world of unorthodox images.
by Agnès Varda France 2018 French 115’ Colour World premiere | Documentary form

Crew

Written and Directed by Agnès Varda
1st part co-directed by Didier Rouget
Cinematography François Décréau, Claire Duguet, Julia Fabry
Editing Agnès Varda, Nicolas Longinotti
Sound David Chaulier, Alan Savary
Assistant Director Julia Fabry
Production Manager Cecilia Rose
Producer Rosalie Varda
Executive Producer Rosalie Varda
Co-Producers Dany Boon, Joey Faré
Co-Production Arte France Issy les Moulineaux
HBB26 Paris
Scarlett Productions Paris

Produced by

Ciné-tamaris

Agnès Varda

Born in Ixelles near Brussels, Belgium in 1928, she grew up in Sète in the south of France. Having studied literature, psychology, art history and philosophy at the Sorbonne and the École du Louvre in Paris, she subsequently trained as a photographer and began working as a stage photographer and photo journalist. A self-taught filmmaker, in 1955 she produced and directed her debut feature film, La Pointe Courte, which earned her the reputation as the grandmother of the nouvelle vague. In 2003, she embarked on a further career as a visual artist, exhibiting her work at the Venice Biennale.

Filmography (selection)

1954 La pointe courte 1961 Cléo de 5 à 7 1964 Le bonheur (Happiness) 1966 Les créatures 1969 Lions Love (... and Lies) 1970 Nausicaa (Disappeared) 1975 Daguerréotypes 1976 L’une chante, l’autre pas (One Sings the Other Doesn't) 1980 Mur murs 1981 Documenteur 1985 Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond) 1987 Jane B. par Agnes V. · Kung-Fu Master 1990 Jacquot de Nantes 1992 Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans 1994 Les cent et une nuits (One Hundred and One Nights) 1995 L’univers de Jacques Demy 2000 Les glaneurs et la glaneuse 2002 Deux ans après 2008 Les plages d’Agnès (The Beaches of Agnès) 2011 Agnès de-ci de-la Varda 2017 Visages Villages (Faces Places) 2018 Varda par Agnès (Varda by Agnès)

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2019