AGNES VARDA (1928 - 2019)

Agnès Varda, who had been affectionately dubbed, "the grandmother of the French New Wave", lived her creative and personal life to the fullest but it has sadly come to an end as she passed away on March 29th at the age of ninety. She had received plenty of honorary awards from many of the top film festivals over the years as well as a Honorary Academy Award in 2017 for her contributions to cinema but Ms Varda was still very much involved in making films. She teamed up with French art filmmaker, JR to co-direct the documentary, "Faces Places (Visages Villages)" which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2017, making her the oldest Oscar nominee in history. She had completed one last film, "Varda by Agnès" which was screened at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. I'm sure it will make it's way stateside very soon.

She was born Arlette Varda on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium and her family relocated to her mother's home country of France during the second World War. Varda, who legally changed her first name to "Agnès" at the age of eighteen, had intended to become a museum curator, studying art history at the École du Louvre but decided to switch to photography. She began as a still photographer, then worked as a photo-journalist throughout Europe before drifting over to cinema. With no experience as a filmmaker, Varda used her history with photography to help shape her first feature, "La Pointe Courte" in 1955 with this film being cited as a forerunner of the French New Wave.

In 1958, Varda met Jacques Demy, who was also a film director and best known for the French musicals, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "The Young Girls of Rochefort". They were married in 1962 and were together until his death in 1990. Varda had two children, Rosalie Varda, a producer, writer and actress, from a previous relationship with actor, Antoine Bourseiller (who starred in her early film "Cléo from 5 to 7") and Mathieu Demy who also followed in the family business as an actor, director and producer.

Varda would go on to make over forty feature films, documentaries and shorts including such celebrated works as "Cléo from 5 to 7" (1962), "Happiness (Le Bonheur)" (1965), "Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi)" (1985), and "The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse)" (2000).

An eccentric and vibrant spirit, Agnès Varda expanded the possibilities of cinema and strongly believed that film should be viewed as an art form. She blazed a bold trail for many filmmakers that have followed her and will be greatly missed.