Agnès Varda

Two women who live in France in the 70s try to discover their own distinct identities, amidst the feminist movement and the decisive events of May 1968. Two stories and one country, in one of Agnes Varda’s most forthrightly political films. — A girl studying for her high school diploma sees a photo of a girlfriend, a few years older than her, hanging in a gallery. The latter shares two children with the photographer and needs money for an abortion. The schoolgirl lies to her parents to help her, but when they realize what is going on, she flees and becomes a singer. The photographer commits suicide and the pregnant girlfriend returns to her family's farm. The two women lose touch for years, but are reunited in a 1972 demonstration.

Is happiness cumulative? Shortly before the May ‘68 riots, Agnes Varda -in a masterpiece replete with colors, movement, glances and the looming presence of death- explores the possibilities of romantic threesomes. — A young carpenter lives a comfortable, tranquil life, married to a lovely wife with whom he shares two wonderful children. Although their marriage is a happy one, he initiates an extramarital affair with a woman he meets on a business trip. When his wife observes that he is unusually joyful, he, unable to lie to her, reveals his infidelity, but says that nothing has changed between them. — Special Prize of the Jury | Berlin International Film Festival | 1965

Through glimpses into the past and stories of people who came across her path, Agnes Varda forms the portrait of a life lost, supported by a hauntingly raw performance by Sandrine Bonnaire. — The film begins with a young woman’s misshapen dead body lying in a ditch. An invisible journalist points his camera at the last men who saw her and the one who found her. In flashbacks, we see her hanging out with homeless people, with a worker from Tunisia, a professor studying trees and a girl who envies her unfettered existence. The woman used to work in an office, but decided to leave her "normal" life behind and become a wanderer. — Official Selection | Venice Film Festival | 1985 FIPRESCI Prize | Venice Film Festival | 1985 OCIC Award | Venice Film Festival | 1985

Varda insisted she had only seen a handful of films before making her first movie, but both the film critics and her future peers were stunned when they watched one of the most mature and sophisticated debuts in French film history. — A man arrives at a train station to meet his wife. After 4 years of marriage, the couple has problems, but they decide they belong together. When they return to Paris, she is armed with a better understanding of her husband after having visited the area where he grew up. It’s a place of poor and proud people. Fishermen gather shellfish from a bacteria-laden lagoon. A toddler dies from an unidentified disease. A young man is allowed to flirt with a neighbor's daughter after winning a tournament.

The fear of middle age is turned on its head to create a sense of freedom. Jane Birkin once confessed to Agnes Varda that turning 40 terrified her, so the director decided to create her portrait. A playful and original film and an exploration of the sacred bond between director and actor. — A kaleidoscopic examination and study of the actress as a woman, mother, muse, idol. The scenes of the "real" Jane Birkin, makeup-free and expressing a desire to be seen "as if I were as transparent, as anonymous as everyone else", are edited with cinematic fantasies of both the actress and director, in the form of renaissance portraits, comedies, thrillers.

The Birkin VS the Varda family, literally. The French director reflects on a taboo subject in an incredibly paradoxical manner and presents her version of what ideal love might be; rather impossible. — At her daughter's party, a mother meets one of the girl’s 14-year-old classmates; he is drunk and she helps him get sober. The woman and the teenager start looking for opportunities to meet, which initially means going to arcades with his favorite game, Kung Fu Master. Gradually, however, the relationship turns romantic and their encounters more and more careless, until her daughter sees them kissing. Where will all this lead? — Official Selection | Berlin International Film Festival | 1988