A free and curious woman!

February 10, 2013 2:28 PM

Known affectionately as the Grandmother of the French New Wave, documentary filmmaker Agnes Varda has captured alien, and familiar aspects of life in China [1957], Cuba [1963] and her own memory of of life in France. DOC Alliance is currently screening 17 of Varda's documentary works until February 17th.

Black Panthers
Daguerreotypes
Diary of a Pregnant Woman
Documenteur
Elsa La Rose
La Pointe Courte
L'Univers de Jacques Demy
Mur Murs
Quelques Veuves de Noirmoutier
Salut les Cubains
The Beaches of Agnes
The Gleaners and I
The So-Called Caryatids
Two Years Later
Uncle Yanco
Women Reply: Our Bodies, Our Sex
Ydessa, The Bears and Etc.

posted by obscurator (8 comments total)

Agnes Varda is, imho, one of the greatest directors in the history of the medium. As smart as Godard without the theatrics, as humanistic as Truffaunt without the cloying whimsey. Along with her awesome documentaries (Black Panthers remains one of the most penetrating statements ever made about that group), her fiction films, like Vagabond, are essential viewing.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 2:41 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I checked out "Black Panthers" last night, it was really good.
posted by facetious at 2:43 PM on February 10, 2013

Really excited that so many of these are available – everything I've seen of hers has been fantastic. "The Gleaners & I" would almost certainly end up on my top-ten-of-the-millennium so far if I bothered to write it out.
posted by with hidden noise at 4:37 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks so much for posting this! Varda is one of my favorite artists in any medium and some of these have been difficult to find in any format.
posted by sophieblue at 4:40 PM on February 10, 2013

For a split second I feared this would be an obit. Thank God(ard) the divine Ms. Varda still walks among us.
posted by pxe2000 at 4:59 PM on February 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes. Varda is amazing.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:13 PM on February 10, 2013

+1 for The Gleaners and I -- one of the best, most narrative and compelling documentaries I've ever seen.
posted by jlittlew at 4:07 AM on February 11, 2013

She is a brilliant filmmaker. I met her once. She is teensy-tiny and totally charming.
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:45 AM on February 11, 2013