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Agnès Varda
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Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style.
a was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, to a Greek father and French mother. Her father's family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor.
Varda studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre before getting a job as the official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris.
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Encyclopedia
Agnès Varda (born 30 May 1928) is a French film director. Her movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style.
Life
Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, to a Greek father and French mother. Her father's family were Greek refugees from Asia Minor.
Varda studied Art History at the Ecole du Louvre before getting a job as the official photographer for the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris. She liked photography but was interested in moving into film. After spending a few days filming the small French fishing town of La Pointe Courte for a terminally ill friend who could no longer visit on his own, Varda decided to shoot a feature film of her own. Thus in 1954, Varda’s first film, La Pointe Courte, about an unhappy couple working through their relationship in a small fishing town, was released. The film is a stylistic precursor to the French New Wave.
Despite similarities to the French New Wave, films by Varda belonged more precisely to the Rive Gauche sister-movement, along with Chris Marker, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Cayrol and Henri Colpi. The group was strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature and politically was positioned in the Left. Like the French New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other.
Award
For the 1985 documentary-style feature film Vagabond/Without Roof or Rule she received the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival.
Selected Filmography
| Title | English Title | Country | Year | Credit |
|---|
| La Pointe Courte | — | France | 1956 | Director, Writer | | Cléo de 5 à 7 | Cléo from 5 to 7 | France/Italy | 1962 | Director, Writer | | Le Bonheur | Happiness | France | 1965 | Director, Writer | | Lions Love | Lions Love | USA/France | 1969 | Director, Writer, Producer | | L'Une chante, l'autre pas | One Sings, the Other Doesn't | Venezuela/France/Belgium | 1977 | Director, Writer | | Sans toit ni loi | Vagabond | France/UK | 1985 | Director, Writer, Editor | | Jane B. par Agnès V. | Jane B. by Agnes V. | France | 1986-7 | Director, Writer, Editor | | Kung-Fu Master | Le Petit amour | France | 1987 | Director, Writer | | Jacquot de Nantes | — | France | 1990 | Director, Writer | | Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma | A Hundred and One Nights | UK/France | 1994 | Director, Writer | | Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse | The Gleaners and I | France | 2000 | Director, Writer, Producer, Editor | | Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse... deux ans après | The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later | France | 2002 | Director, Editor | | Lion volatil, Le | — | France | 2003 | Director, Writer, Producer, Editor | | Plages d'Agnès, Les (currently in production) | — | France | 2008 | Director, Writer, Producer | |
External links
Further reading
- How Agnès Varda "invented" the New Wave by Ginette Vincendeaud, Four by Agnes Varda, Criterion, 2008
- Smith, Alison. Agnès Varda Manchester University Press, 1998. Pg 3.
- Neupert, Richard. A History of the French New Wave Cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI. 2007. Pg 57.
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