On the evening of March 29, 2019, Beijing time, Agnès Varda, the "mother of the French New Wave", died of illness at her home in Paris at the age of 90.
Even in poor health, Varda continued to create, and her latest documentary, Agnès on Varda, was just unveiled at the Berlin Film Festival in February, and in March, the Shanghai International Film Festival received its Chinese mainland premiere rights. However, as soon as the screening plan was finalized, the bad news came that the old documentary man had passed away, and in June, "Agnès on Varda" would be screened in Shanghai, which became the best way for the audience to pay tribute to and remember her.
Born on May 30, 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, Varda studied at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Paris, became a photographer after graduation, and made his feature film debut "Short Horn Love Affair" in 1954, which profoundly inspired the future New Wave of French cinema in terms of innovation in narrative style and audiovisual language, and was praised by film historian Georges Sadur as "the first work of the French Film New Wave".
Since then, Varda's film creation has opened its bow left and right in the two fields of drama and documentary, including feminist classics such as "Cleo at Five to Seven", "The Fallen Woman at the End of the World" (won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival), and documentary masterpieces such as "The Gleaner" and "The Beach of Agnès", and the exuberant creativity has lasted for more than half a century. In 2018, Varda won the Oscar Honors.
Shanghai audiences will not be unfamiliar with Varda, a legendary female director, and at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2009, she screened her "Short Corner Love Affair" and "Cleo at Five to Seven" in the commemorative section of the "50th Anniversary of the French Film New Wave". At the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival in 2018, Varda and Jean Genet co-directed and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, "Faces, Villages". At that time, Varda heard that the Shanghai International Film Festival was going to show her work, and was very happy to say that she would go to Shanghai to attend the post-screening meeting of the film, but finally cancelled her trip to Asia due to physical reasons.
This year's Shanghai International Film Festival's screening of "Agnès on Varda" records Varda's film lectures in various places. In the film, Varda not only reviews her most famous works such as "Cleo at Five to Seven", "Happiness", "The Fallen Woman at the End of the World", etc., but also tells about works that are not familiar to the audience, such as "The Whisper of the Wall", "Record Liar", "Dagre Street Style", etc. Through the memories and free talk of these works, Varda selflessly shared her inspiration and artistic creation process with the audience, and also showed her rich, cute and sensitive inner world.
Varda once said that "if everyone's life unfolds is a landscape, then my life unfolds is a beach", "Agnès on Varda" is like Varda's life beach, and the audience of the Shanghai International Film Festival strolled on the beach in June, picking up beautiful shells at any time.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Li Junna Text Editor: Li Junna Photo Editor: Shao Jing