Viva Varda!

March 23–May 5, 2024

A towering figure of world cinema, Agnès Varda (1928–2019) had a long and wonderfully productive career as a photographer, filmmaker, and visual artist. This series provides an opportunity to view many of her major accomplishments. Varda’s short films, showcased here in two programs, are a must-see to gain a full appreciation of her bold and creative approach to filmmaking.

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  • Viva Varda!

  • Cleo from 5 to 7

  • The Gleaners and I

  • Uncle Yanco

  • Vagabond

  • Documenteur

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Upcoming Films

  • Le bonheur

    Agnès Varda
    France, 1965

    Digital Restoration

    Wednesday, May 1 7 PM

    A bold statement about conjugal fidelity, Agnès Varda’s strikingly colorful, lyrical film examines a love triangle within a circular structure, as a carpenter seeks happiness with both his wife and his mistress. “Varda fills her frames with riots of nature and color” (Richard Brody).

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  • Mur Murs & Documenteur

    Digital Restorations

    Saturday, May 4 3:30 PM

    Agnès Varda’s documentary Mur Murs looks at the murals of Los Angeles as backdrop to and mirror of the city’s many cultures circa 1980. Made directly afterward, Documenteur, a meditative portrait of urban isolation, is different in tone and form, but complexly interwoven with Mur Murs in terms of its imagery and ideas.

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  • Faces Places

    Agnès Varda, JR
    France, 2017
    Sunday, May 5 3:30 PM

    Agnès Varda teams up with hipster artist JR on a road trip across rural France, meeting the locals and creating large-scale portraits. One of Varda’s last films, and a first-rate achievement in her brilliant career.

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Past Films

  • Agnès Varda Shorts, Program 2

    • Saturday, April 20 4:30 PM

    A selection of short films made by Agnès Varda between 1967 and 2002 that offer great insights into her approach to filmmaking, which is at once immediate, intimate, and imaginative. The films featured are a posthumously completed portrait of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Uncle Yanco, and Black Panthers, all three filmed in the United States, as well as La réponse de femmes, Plaisir d’amour en Iran, Ulysse, Les dites cariatides, and Tribute to Zgougou, about her beloved cat.

  • The Gleaners and I

    • Sunday, April 14 2 PM
    Agnès Varda
    France, 2000

    Digital Restoration

    Agnès Varda’s rumination on the art of “living off the leftovers of others” visits food scavengers and cultural rebels, finding inspiration in both the past and the present, the rural and the urban, the political and the highly personal. “Beautiful, absorbing, and touching” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).

  • Viva Varda!

    • Saturday, March 23 4 PM
    • Saturday, April 13 4:30 PM
    Pierre-Henri Gibert
    France, 2023

    Bay Area Premiere

    A new documentary by Pierre-Henri Gibert chronicles Agnès Varda’s expansive career and fills in notable gaps from the previous autobiographical films The Beaches of Agnès and Varda by Agnès. Viva Varda! features rare archival material and interviews with Varda’s family members, friends, and collaborators. Shown with the posthumously completed Agnès Varda—Pier Paolo Pasolini—New York—1967.

  • Vagabond

    • Thursday, April 11 7 PM
    Agnès Varda
    France, 1985

    Digital Restoration

    The short life and eventual death of a young female drifter forms the basis of Agnès Varda’s chilling look at alienation and idealism. “Like so many of the greatest films, it tells us a very specific story, strong and unadorned, about a very particular person” (Roger Ebert).

  • Agnès Varda Shorts, Program 1

    • Sunday, March 31 2 PM

    Agnès Varda’s short films offer incredible insights into her aesthetic approach as a filmmaker. She uses the language of cinema in a remarkably free and creative way. This collection of shorts finds Varda observing people, spaces, and places from France to Cuba, in L’opéra-Mouffe, Du côté de la côte, Ô saisons, ô chateaux, and Salut les Cubains.

  • Cléo from 5 to 7

    • Friday, March 29 7 PM
    Agnès Varda
    France, 1962

    Shot entirely on location in the streets of Paris, Cléo chronicles two hours of a pop singer’s life. A score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Legrand, Jean-Luc Godard, and Anna Karina flavor this New Wave classic that proves Agnès Varda’s theme, “one isn’t born a woman, one becomes one.”

  • La Pointe Courte

    • Sunday, March 24 2 PM
    Agnès Varda
    France, 1955

    BAMPFA Collection Print

    Made outside the French film industry on a shoestring budget, Agnès Varda’s debut film about two reunited lovers in a Mediterranean fishing port has been called “truly the first film of the nouvelle vague” (Georges Sadoul).