Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda (b. 1928, Ixelles, Belgium) is without doubt the most significant woman director in the history of French cinema. Known affectionately––if inaccurately, given her age in the 1950s—as the grandmother of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), her filmmaking career spans six decades, and her final film, Les plages d’Agnès (The Beaches of Agnès, 2008), was as innovative and critically acclaimed as was her groundbreaking debut, La pointe courte (1954). The majority of her works have emerged on the margins of official production and distribution, and she has produced most of...

Agnès Varda (b. 1928, Ixelles, Belgium) is without doubt the most significant woman director in the history of French cinema. Known affectionately––if inaccurately, given her age in the 1950s—as the grandmother of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), her filmmaking career spans six decades, and her final film, Les plages d’Agnès (The Beaches of Agnès, 2008), was as innovative and critically acclaimed as was her groundbreaking debut, La pointe courte (1954). The majority of her works have emerged on the margins of official production and distribution, and she has produced most of her films through her own company, Ciné-Tamaris. She has made a wide variety of documentaries, fictions, shorts, and features, along with a number that lie between in style and length. All her films testify to her creativity as an artist, as does her written work throughout her career. More recently, her move into installation art in the 21st century reflects her continued capacity for experimental innovation. The following article charts the different facets of her work as filmmaker, writer, and installation artist, and also the relation her work bears to painting and photography.