Agnès Varda

Ydessa Hendeles' exhibition entitled "The living and the Artificial" (consisting of works of art all comprising a photograph of living persons in the company of one or several teddy bears) had puzzled Agnès Varda so much that she decided to go to Toronto where the artist lives and interview her. In front of Agnes Varda's DV camera, Ydessa tells about the singularity of her artistic approach. She also expresses herself about the Holocaust, which both her parents survived.

One day in 1956 some people were captured by Varda's lens in a surprising configuration, as if staged. This is Le terrasse du Corbusier. Who were they? What were they doing there? And why on that day?

Holding her 16mm camera, an optical prosthesis for a 20th-century stroller, Agnès Varda filmed 42nd Street in NYC in 1967, filming crowds of passers-by to the beat of the Doors. Recovered from the French director's boxes, with images of Varda, Pasolini and New York. Pasolini is shown walking in the Big Apple (where he went to present 'Hawks and Sparrows').

An unpredictable documentary from a fascinating storyteller, Agnès Varda’s last film sheds light on her experience as a director, bringing a personal insight to what she calls "cine-writing," traveling from Rue Daguerre in Paris to Los Angeles and Beijing.

Agnès Varda chose to focus on the hanging mobile Vertical Foliage (1941), which she came across during a visit to the Calder Foundation in New York. In When Sandy Dreams, Varda melds footage of the sea and the mobile in motion with photographs she took in 1952 of Calder on the beach in the south of France. “I put these images together thinking of how the slight wind on the beach would move the mobile,” says Varda. In doing so, she bridges admiration for her old friend with her powerful connection to the ocean—a common motif in her visual art and the vessel through which she looked back on her life in the 2008 documentary The Beaches of Agnès.

Director Agnès Varda and photographer/muralist JR journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

“Miss Jasmine! I have a package for you!” The 14-year-old girl with braces takes a break from milking the goat. Her local postman has delivered a surprise. She opens it up. Out floats a magical magenta ball dress ten times her teenage size. “I am curious,” she says, and enters the folds of the dress. From here, Jasmine⎯headstrong, a dreamer, a realist⎯takes us on a modern anti-fairy tale through caves and stalagmites, streets and shop windows, obsessions and everyday empowerment.

Thirteen filmmakers share personal reflections on Henri Langlois—the visionary founder of the Cinémathèque Française—recounting his influence on their lives, his role in preserving film history, and his enduring impact on world cinema.

On the occasion of the Henri Langlois Centenary (2014), Agnès Varda recounts a memory.

The 3 lives of Agnès Varda: photographer, filmmaker and visual artist.

Since 1995, the Viennale has invited renowned directors to create short, one-minute films as personal contributions to the festival. Ranging from home movies to political essays, musical sketches to abstract studies, these “little films” form a unique anthology of cinematic moments. 20 Little Films collects a selection of these works, premiering together for the Viennale’s 50th anniversary at the Locarno Film Festival.

This profile of street artists Jérôme Mesnager and Miss Tic was shot by director Agnès Varda in Paris between 2006 and 2012.

Two friends (and legendary French New Wave filmmakers) meet in real and virtual worlds.

Agnès Varda travels around the world to meet friends, artists and filmmakers for an expansive view of the global contemporary art scene.

Projection of a photograph, video in loop, sand

Film director Agnes Varda captures the creation of a beach in front of her home in Rue Daguerre, for the film 'The Beaches of Agnes'.

This 2009 featurette, directed by Agnès Varda, gives an inside look into how her team set up THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS’s beach trapeze sequences.

Director Agnès Varda gathers some of her collaborators from JACQUOT DE NANTES to discuss their experiences making the film, as well as show Varda wove her grief over the loss of her husband, Jacques Demy, into other projects.

A short program in which the participants describe how they fell in love with cinema.

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

In 2007, the French filmmaker and my dear friend Agnès Varda called me before coming to L.A. with a question: would I agree to let her film my L.A. story? The video you are about to watch is the story of our first encounter in Paris in 1996 and in the years since, how our shared reverence for cinema formed the bonds of an everlasting friendship, and how the Cinematheque became like home.

Agnes Varda introduces a collection of her short films released to DVD.

A documentary film directed by French Agnès Varda as an extension of the exhibition 'L'île et elle'. The installation 'Les veuves de Noirmoutier' (or 'The Widows of Noirmoutier') had various women filmed by Varda, young and old, who spoke about their widowhood and their residence on the island of Noirmoutier. The film is a montage of these meetings, which are both simple and melancholic.

Four intellectuals from various professions and backgrounds discuss their thoughts on Agnès Varda's 'Le bonheur' as a film and their thoughts on happiness as a concept.

In this 2006 program by Agnès Varda, her daughter, Rosalie Varda, reunites Claire Drouot and Marie-France Boyer to discuss their roles in the controversial film 'La bonheur' forty-one years earlier.

Agnès Varda and her crew stroll through the streets of Fontenay-aux-Roses asking a number of the town's residents what happiness means to them.

Director Agnès Varda looks at definitions of happiness put forth by great writers.

In 2006, director Agnès Varda followed Jean-Claude Drouot, who plays François in 'Le bonheur', as he returned to the movie's setting of Fontenay-aux-Roses and retraced his steps. He also reconnects with local residents, some of whom were featured in the film.

A super short film to accompany the earlier documentary of the same name. A photoplay of various caryatids to be found in Paris.

Daguerréotypes filmmaker Agnès Varda shot this footage of an outdoor concert in Paris’s 14th arrondissement in 2005.

More than 40 years after making "Cléo de 5 à 7," Agnes Varda invites her star, two other cast members, and her assistant directors to look back. She takes us through the film, from opening scene to the end, visiting its Paris locales, placing her aged actors in the same spots, telling stories, and listening to others' reflections on the making of the film. She and they talk about making a film on a low budget, its showing at Cannes, and trying to fix a problem in the last shot. Her assistant directors discuss casting, costumes, sets, and the ways the film changed their approaches to filmmaking.

This short profile of Agnès Varda’s longtime bakery and accordion shop was shot by the filmmaker in 2005.

Daguerréotypes filmmaker Agnès Varda made this short video of a daguerreotype exhibit in 2005.

Agnes Varda revisits the storefronts and some of the local people she interviewed 30 years earlier in Daguerréotypes (1976).

A theatrically-released compilation of three Varda shorts: "Salut les Cubains," "Ulysse" and "Ydessa, les ours et etc."

Film director Agnès Varda reflects on the production of ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS, and presents a brief on-set interview with actor Michel Piccoli

Director Agnes Varda and composer Joanna Brusdowicz discuss the music they created for Varda's film 'Sans Toi Ni Loi' [Vagabond], and the dolly shots that the music accompanies during the film.

An adventure of three characters: Clarisse, a psychic’s apprentice, Lazare, who works at the Parisian catacombs, and the bronze statue of a lion at the Denfert-Rochereau (in the 14th arrondissement). Clarisse and Laraze meet daily, but one day Lazare disappears and the lion disappears as well!

A short piece in which Agnes Varda revisits actress Marthe Jarnias, who plays the old aunt in her 1985 film "Vagabond".

18 years after the making of the film "Vagabond", director Agnès Varda created this documentary which includes interviews with the cast.

Agnès Varda’s follow-up to her acclaimed documentary THE GLEANERS AND I takes us deeper into the world of those who find purpose and beauty in the refuse of society, revisiting many of the original film’s subjects.

A short tribute to Zgougou, Varda’s cat who was given to her by Sabine Mamou.

Varda focuses her eye on gleaners: those who scour already-reaped fields for the odd potato or turnip. Her investigation leads from forgotten corners of the French countryside to off-hours at the green markets of Paris, following those who insist on finding a use for that which society has cast off, whether out of necessity or activism.

Agnès Varda's documentary portrait of her late husband, Jacques Demy. A companion piece to her Jacquot de Nantes.

Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made.

Agnes Varda's documentary of the celebrations arising from the 25th anniversary of her husband Jacques Demy's film The Young Girls of Rochefort.

Jacquot Demy, the son of a garage owner and a hairdresser, is fascinated by cinema and decides to pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker by any means necessary.

A lonely 40-year old woman finds herself shattering taboos by falling in love with the 14-year old Julien – but is it romance, or a desperate attempt to turn back time in the face of middle age?

The interests, obsessions, and fantasies of two singular artists converge in this inspired collaboration between Agnès Varda and her longtime friend Jane Birkin. Made over the course of a year and motivated by Birkin’s fourtieth birthday—a milestone she admits to have some anxiety over—Jane B. by Agnès V. contrasts the private, reflective Birkin with Birkin the icon.

Short directed by Agnès Varda in 1986 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the French Cinematheque, presenting a contrast between the famous stairs from the place along with classic film images also revolving around stairs.

At the sea shore, a goat, a child, and a naked man. This is a photograph taken in 1954 by Agnès Varda. The goat was dead, the child was named Ulysses, and the man was naked. Starting from this frozen image, the film explores the real and the imaginary.

A short by Agnés Varda that includes excerpts from an interview on the France Culture radio show “La nuit sur un plateau,” hosted by Alain Veinstein, with Varda and with writer Nathalie Sarraute, whose writings inspired Varda's film 'Sans toi ni loi' (Vagabond) and to whom Varda dedicated that film.

Mona Bergeron is dead, her frozen body found in a ditch in the French countryside. From this, the film flashes back to the weeks leading up to her death. Through these flashbacks, Mona gradually declines as she travels from place to place, taking odd jobs and staying with whomever will offer her a place to sleep. Mona is fiercely independent, craving freedom over comfort, but it is this desire to be free that will eventually lead to her demise.

An unusual visit to a large, empty apartment. But is it empty or not? Maybe a family has lived there or is going to live there. Maybe a young girl is going to escape from there. Maybe some of the old-timers who lived there never left. The walls themselves tell the stories of the time passing by.

Commissioned by French television, this is a short documentary on the neo-classical statues found throughout Paris, predominantly on the walls of buildings, holding up windows, roofs etc.

TV series directed by Varda in which she gives thoughts to her favorite images and why she is drawn to them (in short one minute segments per image)

After separating from the father of her son, a young French woman tries to find lodging and a fresh start in L.A. for herself and her son.

Venturing from Venice Beach to Watts, Varda looks at the murals of LA as backdrop to and mirror of the city’s many cultures. She casts a curious eye on graffiti and photorealism, roller disco & gang violence, evangelical Christians, Hare Krishnas, artists, angels and ordinary Angelenos.

An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.

The intertwined lives of two women in 1970s France, set against the progress of the women's movement in which Agnes Varda was involved. Pomme and Suzanne meet when Pomme helps Suzanne obtain an abortion after a third pregnancy which she cannot afford. They lose contact but meet again ten years later. Pomme has become an unconventional singer, Suzanne a serious community worker - despite the contrast they remain friends and share in the various dramas of each others' lives, in the process affirming their different female identities.

An Iranian man and a French woman stroll around the city of Isfahan, Iran and find that their love is mirrored perfectly in the architecture and mosaics of the city's mosques.

What does being a woman really mean? How do women live the status society reserves for them? A group of women, beautiful or not, young or not, gifted with motherly instinct or not, answer before Agnès Varda's camera.

A girl, whose father is from Greece, studies ancient art in France. The film was made for television but never broadcast for political reasons related to its portrayal of Greeks. A work print was screened in Belgium in 1971, and the film is now available in reconstructed form.

Three actors in Hollywood live and love together. A director comes from New York to make a movie about actors and Hollywood.

A film shot during the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California around the meetings organised by the Black Panthers Party to free Huey Newton, one of their leaders, and to turn his trial into a political debate. They tried and succeeded in catching America’s attention.

In seven different parts, Godard, Ivens, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy for the North-Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

Images and poems of the celebrated couple Louis Aragon and Elsa Triolet. Elsa’s youth as recalled by Aragon, with commentary by Elsa.

A writer decides to use the strange inhabitants of a small island as a basis for characters in his new book.

35mm test scenes from a 1966 Agnès Varda project. Distributors and producers were unimpressed. Three friends try to earn money decorating café windows for Christmas. A moral fable, loosely based on Dickens.

Though married to the good-natured, beautiful Thérèse, young husband and father François finds himself falling unquestioningly into an affair with an attractive postal worker. One of Agnès Varda's most provocative films, 'Le bonheur' examines, with a deceptively cheery palette and the spirited strains of Mozart, the ideas of fidelity and happiness in a modern, self-centered world.

The workshop of painting, modeling and sculpture for children under fifteen, at the Museum of Decorative Arts, rue de Rivoli (1st arrondissement). Pierre Belvès, creator of the workshop, animates the work of the children. A report from the magazine "Chroniques de France", produced for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for dissemination abroad.

A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their socialist culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the filmmaker took while on the island.

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

A subtitle warns, "beware of dark sunglasses." Anna and her lover, whose looks in bowler and bow tie are reminiscent of a young Buster Keaton, kiss chastely on a bridge overlooking the Seine. He dons sunglasses and waves as she runs down a stairway to the river's edge, then watches in horror as she's knocked flat and loaded into the back of a hearse. In vain, he gives chase. Disconsolate, he buys a large funeral wreath and a handkerchief from sympathetic vendors. He removes the glasses to wipe his eyes and realizes they are the cause of all his woe. He replays the farewell without the glasses.

Unfinished film project from Agnès Varda (c. 1960)

Tongue-in-cheek look at the French Riviera, especially in summer when it overflows with tourists. Reviews its history and famous visitors; displays its faux-exotic buildings, its crowded beaches, its trees and monuments; and, pokes fun at the colors women wear and the vagaries of fashion. The film celebrates the use of "Eden" as a place name, suggesting that paradise comes to the coast after all are gone, perhaps only on a remote island beach.

A short documentary on the chateaux of the Loire in France was commissioned by the French Tourist Bureau.

Impressions of the rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, through the eyes of a pregnant woman.

A short film made with the film end rolls of 'Du côté de la côte'.

A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.