Agnès Varda, born in 1928 in Brussels, Belgium, is an photographer, artist and film director whose work was central to the development of the French New Wave film movement.
Her career pre-dates the start of the Nouvelle vague (French New Wave), and La Pointe Courte contains many elements specific to that movement. While working at a photographer, Varda became interested in making a film, although she stated that she knew little about the medium and had only seen around twenty films by the age of twenty-five. She later said she wrote her first screenplay “just the way a person writes his first book. When I’d finished writing it, I thought to myself: ‘I’d like to shoot that script,’ and so some friends and I formed a cooperative to make it.” She found the filmmaking process difficult because it didn’t allow the same freedom as writing a novel; however she said that her approach was instinctive and feminine, stating that “I’m not at all a theoretician of feminism, I did all that – my photos, my craft, my film, my life – on my terms, my own terms, and not to do it like a man.” In an interview with The Believer, Varda stated that she wanted to make films that related to her time (in reference to La Pointe Courte), rather than focusing on traditions or classical standards.
Varda lives and works in Paris, France.
[via Paris Photo / Wikipedia]
