People 人物 To Mention Only A FEW.: Agnès Varda

The octogenarian filmmaker Agnès Varda

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: A scene from "The Beaches of Agnès"

Varda has been a pioneer in the world of cinema since the 1950s. Today at the age of 81, she remains highly active.

Agnès Varda met her husband-to-be and fellow film-maker, the late Jacques Demy back in the 50s. Her autobiographical ‘Les Plages d’Agnès’ – released in English as ‘The Beaches of Agnes’ – won a César (the French equivalent of the Oscars) for best documentary earlier this year, and more recently, she has been experimenting with installations involving film, in exhibits at galleries in Lyons and Oporto.

Varda, Agnès (änyĕs' värdä') 1928-, French filmmaker, b. Brussels. She studied at the Sorbonne, École du Louvre, and a Paris photography school and began working as a theatrical photographer (1951-61) and photojournalist. Varda's first film, La Pointe Courte (1954), has been called the first work of France's cinematic new wave. Fiercely independent, she established a reputation for originality and feminist concerns in Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961), the "real-time" story of a pop star awaiting a crucial medical diagnosis. Since then, she has directed some 30 films (and written many of them), which often deal with themes of isolation and loneliness. Her best-known features include Happiness, (1965) The Creatures (1966), One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1977), Vagabond (1985), and Jane B. by Agnes V. (1987). Varda has also made documentaries, e.g., Black Panthers (1968), and two tributes (1991 and 1995) to her late husband, the director Jacques Demy.