Agnès Varda was born in Brussels, but lives and works in France. She is a film director and belonged to the French nouvelle vague movement. She has been one of the pioneers of feminist cinema. She studied art history at the École du Louvre before working as an official photographer at the Théâtre National Populaire (TNP) in Paris. She soon became interested in cinema. After spending a few days filming in Sète, in the La Pointe Courte district, on behalf of a friend with a terminal illness who could not go there himself, she decided to make her first film, La Pointe Courte (1954), which tells the story of a couple and their relationship in Sète. This film can be considered the stylistic forerunner of the nouvelle vague. Her films and documentaries are realistic and touch on social issues.
She was married to the director Jacques Demy. In the film Jacquot de Nantes (1991) Varda relates Demy’s childhood and his love of theatre and cinema, and pays tribute to him in Les Demoiselles ont eu 25 ans (1993) and L’univers de Jacques Demy (1995).
Her films include Cléo de 5 à 7 (1961); Les créatures (1966); Le bonheur (1965); Réponse de femmes (1975); L’une chante, l’autre pas (1977); Sans toit ni loi (1985), Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival; Les glaneurs et la glaneuse…deux ans après (2002); Les plages d’Agnès (2008), winner of the César award in 2009.
She has received the René Clair Award from the French Academy and the Henri-Langlois Award, among others, and is a commander of the Legion of Honour.
LiberPress Cinema Award 2011
Agnès Varda received the 2011 LiberPress Award for her splendid cinema career, characterised by great social commitment and deep feminism, in which she studies humanity, films it and depicts it with the great tenderness and feeling, turning her characters into real people. Her energy, enthusiasm, curiosity and love for the cinema, her intuition and respect when witnessing other people’s lives, make her a unique and universal film-maker.