Agnes Varda: Director's Inspiration

French filmmaker Agnès Varda, a trailblazer who broke new artistic and cinematic ground for nearly seven decades, is celebrated in a new book. Varda's three lives as a photographer, filmmaker, and artist are explored, with previously unseen archival materials, texts, and personal reflections from Jane Birkin, Martin Scorsese, JR, and more. The book also includes an unpublished interview Varda gave to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on the eve of receiving her Honorary Oscar in 2017.

Format: Unspecified
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 28 November 2023
Publisher: Distributed Art Publishers

French filmmaker Agnès Varda was a trailblazer who broke new artistic and cinematic ground for nearly seven decades. Although closely associated with the French New Wave, Varda established her groundbreaking visual style in her 1955 debut film La Pointe Courte, well before other milestones such as François Truffauts The 400 Blows and Jean-Luc Godards Breathless. Varda impacted cinema from her first feature film through her final works, with an expansive oeuvre that includes Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and the Academy Award-nominated Faces Places (2017).

Agnès Varda: Directors Inspiration presents the first English-language visual showcase for Vardas inspirations, art, and personal life, incorporating original materials from her personal archive on rue Daguerre. The book covers Vardas three lives—as photographer, filmmaker, and visual artist—and features a previously unpublished interview Varda gave to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on the eve of receiving her Honorary Oscar in 2017. Essays by author Sasha Archibald and film critic Peter Debruge examine facets of Vardas creative lives, and personal reflections by friends and colleagues illustrate what it was like to collaborate with and be inspired by Varda.

Agnès Varda (1928–2019) was a French filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist, sometimes called the grandmother of the French New Wave. In 2018, her film with the French photographer and muralist known as JR, Faces Places, received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature, and that same year, she received an honorary Academy Award.

Dimension: 254 x 178 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781636810607