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.
[>>]Source: WikipediaAgnès 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 and career
Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of Christiane (née Pasquet) and Eugene Jean Varda, an engineer. Her mother was French and 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 complementary Rive Gauche (Left Bank) cinema movement, along with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, 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 to the Left. Like the French New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other.
Varda was married to the film director Jacques Demy from 1962 until his death in 1990.
Varda was one of the five persons to attend Jim Morrison's burial in Paris at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
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