The “Anti-Establishment” Shorts: Black Panthers back
1968, USA

 

Agnes Varda was born Arlette Varda in Brussels, Belgium, to a Greek father and French mother. She studied literature and psychology at the Sorbonne, and art history at the École du Louvre. With almost no academic or technical knowledge of film (though she had been a still photographer for Jean Vilar's Theatre National Populaire) in 1954 she made her first film La Pointe Courte which anticipated the French "New Wave".

     Varda's international reputation was secured with her 1961 feature Cleo de 5 a 7. Her next film, and her first in color, was Le Bonheur (1965), a pioneering feminist manifesto.

     "Vagabond," a documentary-style feature about a young French female wanderer, was arguably her best work to date. For Vagabond (1985) Varda received the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival. From 1990, she made three films about her husband Jacques Demy. Majority of Varda films were produced by the production company she founded in 1954, Ciné Tamaris.