In The Beaches of Agnès, the 81 year old legendary Belgian-born auteur filmmaker, Agnès Varda, has set out to create an unforgettable self-portrait comprised of film clips, family photos, reconstructions of her memories and interviews. Varda, whose La Pointe Courte (1954) is considered the precursor of French Nouvelle Vague Cinema, worked along side Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras in the Rive Gauche Cinema movement.
Earlier this year, Varda was honoured with the Glory to Filmmaker award at the Venice Film Festival. Her newly released memoir (The Beaches) won the best documentary film of 2009 at the Cesar Award and in April, she was made the Commander de la Légion d’Honneur.
A modern poet with a delightfully whimsical spirit, Varda enchants her audiences by blurring the line between fact and fiction. In the words of Nigel Andrews “Memoir movies have been among the screen’s masterworks, from Fellini’s Amarcord to Tarkovsky’s Mirror to Terence Davies’s anthems to a Liverpool childhood. Agnès Varda’s The Beaches of Agnès… is irresistibly playful: a loose-leaf diary in which the pages are shuffled by instinct, wit and surreal art.” (The Financial Times)
Produced, directed, written by Agnes Varda.
A Cine-Tamaris, ARTE France Cinema production, with the participation of Canal Plus and the support of the Region Ile-de-France, Region Languedoc-Rousillon, in partnership with the Centre National de la Cinematographie.
With: Agnes Varda, Mathieu Demy, Rosalie Varda (in French & English dialogue)
