To Agnès Varda

From the site's owner:
Agnès Varda was a filmmaker, often called the grandma of the Nouvelle Vague (Because her films already had characteristics of this movement before it even started). Varda's work is deeply personal or pretty political, and above all realistic; pieces in which she analized the world she lived in, her films reflect the curiosity she had for our world, and a feeling that she can contagiate to everyone who experience her work.
I consider her a total legend and also a great, great inspiration.

This site is in constant update

Biography (From IMDb):
Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium as Arlette Varda. She was a director and writer, known for Sans toit ni loi (1985), Visages villages (2017) and Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

La Pointe-Courte (1955)

Made by Varda at a time when she wasn't in touch with a lot of cinema. Filmed experimentally with help of also renouned Alain Resnais, in location (Sète). The film tells the story of a couple visiting a small fishing town, they have problems, as any couple, but these start to deteriorate their relationship (Or do they).

A couple arrives to the husband's birth town, after living in Paris for a few years they need a kind of vacation, and she, wants a divorce, but as they start traveling through the town, they start to see their life as a couple in a different light, at the same time, the folks of the town want to continue selling sea food, but the Ministry of Salubrity has concerns with the quality of the water in the town, deeming their products as dangerous, something that the townsfolk doesn't agree with.

The conflict of the couple seems irrelevant in front of the town's conflict that is treatening to their livestyles, but either way, is not as less important.

At this point in her life, Varda was already a photographer, and her knowledge in cameras can be seen throgout the entirety of this film.

Ô Saisons, Ô Châteaux (1958) *

Commissioned by the national tourism board to promote the medieval castles of the Loire Valley region. A trip through the region in chronological order, accompanied by the multiple portraits of what in our day could be representative of ladies of the Court, models posing as if they just came out of a magazine, incredibly big and abandoned castles, that tell a little about history, but a lot about the royalty.

Du côté de la côte (1958) *

An exploration of the beaches and buildings of the Riviera, of Cannes, of the arts and the colours, the tourists and the activities, the architecture and the arts. Needless to say, it is a commissioned project for the tourism agency of France, but it is wonderfully made.

Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald ou (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires) (1961)*

A small short silent film starring a Jean-Luc Godard reminiscent to Buster Keaton and Anna Karina, the film became later a segment in Cléo de 5 à 7.

Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962)

"Cléo de 5 à 7" is regarded as one, if not, the most important films of the filmography of Agnès Varda, a film that shows mastery in narrative, as in photography, a film that also exposes the Varda's worries related to gender, consumism, solitude, and death.

The film follows Cleo, from 5pm to 7pm, a timeframe were she's waiting to receive her diagnosis of cancer, in that time of worry, Cleo starts to wander through Paris, through the eyes of the men who can't stop watching her, through all of her friends who worry but can't get out of themselves, and finally through the fear and love.

Such a wonderful film, shot with a sensibility that nobody else could replicate ever again.

Salut les Cubains (1964)*

Varda, along other filmmakers visit Cuba for a celebration of the aniversary of their revolution, in it, Varda explores the evolution of the Cuban society and their culture after the revolution.

The film is full of dance, music, emblematic characters, and unforgetable faces that Varda revisits over and over again in future works. The film is animated through static photographs, in a way that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere else.

Le Bonheur (1965)

Happiness is Varda's third feature film, a film that reflects on happiness, and how is it achieved according to the general public. A happy family is the protagonist of this one, a happy wife, a happy husband, and a baby boy, they're all living in eternal joy, but one day, the husband meets a woman who happens to look like her wife at the postal station, and starts to imagine that maybe the source of his happiness must be his marriage, so what if he decides to add more happiness to the happiness and get a second wife, so he tries to convince her wife of accepting an open relation, but how does she feel about that?

Elsa, la rose(1966)*

Louis Aragon remembers the history of the love of his life, Elsa Triolet, a great author, an eternal fountain of beauty to Aragon. Some poems that Aragon wrote for Elsa, are read aloud by Michel Piccoli, a tender short film about love, love, love.

Les créatures (1966)

Loin du Vietnam (1967)**

This time Varda unites with a bunch of journalist and directors to create an film anthology with uncredited documentary, fictional and essay films made by her, and other renowned directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Lelouch, Alain Resnais, among others. The result is a deeply emotional and disturbing work that serves as a way to understand the sudden uprising in nationalism in the west, with company of a series of -Very well justified for some- anti-USA ideology. For some strange reason, this is a good film to watch in the current political turmoil, because suddenly the worries of these authors are starting to reappear.

It also includes an interesting reflection by Godard, who talks to us about a conversation he had with himself, and how the more cultured cinema spectrum that he inadvertedly got himself into forced him out of the real public he wanted to talk to (Us, the commoners, of course 😅).

Rumor has it that also Jacques Demy and Ruy Guerra had plans to participate in this collective film but their plans were rejected.

Uncle Yanco(1967)*

Black Panthers(1968)*

A report about a series of rallies and public debates organized by the Black Panthers Party in Oakland with the intention of freeing Huey Newton, a leader of the party who recently was accussed of murder, the facts are sketchy, and the community is angry. Through a series of interviews, the insides of the party are made clear to the spectator, even outside of the event, their beliefs and phylosophy are not allowed to be nuanced this time. A great introspection of the political actions of a group not very looked upon internationally.

Lions Love (...and Lies) (1969)

"Lions, Love and lies" stars a trio formed by Viva (One of the Warhol Superstars), and the writers of the musical Hair, Gerome Ragni and James Rado, who interpret famous celebrities in Hollywood who live fairly simple lives, just having fun, doing absolutely nothing all day, figures surrounded by mysticism, imagined living wonderfully exciting lives, in giant orgies, sexual figures a paradise for the normal people that in reality is no different from the normal lives of everyone else, minus, of course work.

One day, Academy award nominee, Shirley Clarke arrives at their houses, in this reality, the experimental filmmaker is obsessed by movie, so much so that she would kill herself if she suddenly couldn't make a movie, even if, for Clarke, a movie is never worth dying for.

The film, the directorial and actorial work are designed so that the spectator is always aware that they're watching a movie, a fiction, but it also goes it's way out to represent in a more documentary-like approach the great falacy that Hollywood represents, a place doomed eternally by it's former glory, a place where ironically there's no real place for art and cinema, only for fame, fame and fame.

The United States of America, the land of the stars! The land of the dreams!!!
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Nausicaa (1970)

Réponse de femmes (1975)*

Varda, with the help of many women reply to the woman question, a difficult question that can never be solved, with a dynamic definition, a cry of anger, and a simple message of a better future for all of us.

Daguerréotypes (1976)

Plaisir d'amour en Iran (1976)*

Part documentary, part fiction, Iran with all their beautiful architecture is the perfect place for lovers; even if in the iranian culture, women are only allowed to live in the women's world and men in their own world, the place is perfect, at least for foreigners in the insides of a fictional film.

L'une chante, l'autre pas (1977)

Two very different women find themselves in very different situations, very different lives, and still agree to help each other, a feminist tale about community in the face of dangers and a dangerous culture, the decisions each women has to take and how that doesn't make each other less than the other, not a single definition for what is a women, but a single definition of what each one want and it's not just freedom.

Mur Murs (1981)*

In one of Varda's most recognizable film, we visit Los Angeles, to be obsessed with the fascination that the author of the film got when she got to LA and saw how many murals paint the city, from the nicest areas, to the hoods, and how each one represent more than the multiculturality of the city, they also represent their people, their history, their hearts, their animals and their future.

Documenteur (1981)

[ dodo cucu maman vas-tu-te-taire ]

( An emotion picture )

in my mind, i also feel that it always rains in Los Angeles

A recently divorced mother has moved to L.A. with her small son, looking to make a new home, looking for a new life, however, the love she felt for her ex-husband, the happiness they could have had follows her everywhere, she thinks about the people around her, about their faces, their past and how they feel, are they in pain just like her?

The duo eventually finds a place to stay in the highly multicultural outskirts of the city, a mother and a kid that have little money to spare, and a kid that wishes, as every other kid, to get a new toy or a tv sometimes, maybe, the wishes of adults are not so different from those of children as they are only eclipsed by the mere existance of Hollywood right around the corner, the desire of living their lives, that finally carries us to the realization, the realization that maybe there beautiful things that can be found in these situation, love, desire, and maybe the joy of a different kind of happiness that seems to go against the definition of happiness set by the societies we live in.

In the same vein as Mur Murs, Documenteur celebrates the unseen faces of Los Angeles.

Ulysse (1983)*

Une Minute Pour une image (1983)*

7p., cuis., s. de b., ... à saisir (1984)*

Les dites cariatides (1984)*

Sans toit, ni loi (1985)

Histoire d'une vieille dame (1985)

T'as de beaux escalier tu sais (1986)

Le Petit Amour (1988)

...empty...

Jane B. par Agnès V. (1988)