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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

Agnès Varda

Agnès VARDA (1928, Brussels–2019, Paris) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer. She studied Art History at the École du Louvreand and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts but also held a Bachelor’s in Literature and Psychology from the Sorbonne. While working as a photographer, Varda became interested in making a film, even though she knew little about the industry and had only seen around 20 films by the age of 25. She later explained that she wrote her first screenplay “just the way a person writes their first book. When I’d finished writing it, I thought to myself: ‘I’d like to shoot that script,’ and so some friends and I formed a cooperative to make it.” Varda’s feature film debut was La Pointe Courte (1955), but her film Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961) established her name as a filmmaker, becaming a monument of the French New Wave. Varda wanted to make films that were related to her time, rather than focusing on traditions or classical standards.

Filmography

(selection) La Pointe Courte (1954), Cléo de 5 à 7/Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Le Bonheur/Happiness (1965), Elsa (1966, short), Les Créatures (1966), Loin du Vietnam/Far from Vietnam (1967, doc, co-dir), Black Panthers (1968, short doc), Lions Love (1969), Nausicaa (170, TV), Daguerréotypes (1975), L’une chante l’autre pas/One sings the other doesn’t (1976), Mur murs/Mural Murals (1980), Documenteur/Documenteur: An Emotion Picture (1981), Ulysse (1983, episode), Sans toit ni loi/Vagabond (1985), Jane B. par Agnès V. (1987), Le petit amour/Kung Fu Master (1987), Jacquot de Nantes/Jaquot (1991), Les demoiselles ont eu 25 ans/The Young Girls Turn 25 (1992, doc), Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma/A hundred and One Nights of Simon Cinema (1994), Les plages d’Agnès (2008), Visages Villages/Faces Places (2017), Varda par Agnès/Varda by Agnès (2019), L’opéra-mouffe (2024, short), Réponses de femmes: Notre corps, notre sexe (2024, short), Ulysse (2024, short)

 

 

Agnès Varda at IFFR