Jul 11th 2019

LA POLITIQUE DES AUTRES:
Short Films by Agnès Varda, Program I
at Block Cinema

RÉPONSE DES FEMMES (1976, 9 min, 35mm)
DU CÔTÉ DE LA CÔTE (1958, 27 min, 35mm)
L’OPERA MOUFFE (1958, 16 min, 35mm)
ULYSSE (1983, 22 min, 16mm)
UNCLE YANCO (1967, 22 min, 35mm)

All films in French with English subtitles.

The movie-mad cinéastes of the French New Wave gave us the “politique des auteurs,” which François Truffaut described in a single sentence: “There are no works, there are only auteurs.” But the woman who gave us the French New Wave, the celebrated Belgian-born French filmmaker Agnès Varda (1928 – 2019), was not a cinephile. Rather, the dozens of features, documentaries, and short films she crafted throughout her six-decade career testify to a different guiding passion: a love of the people, places, and politics she encountered on the other side of her lens.

The two-part program LA POLITIQUE DES AUTRES: SHORT FILMS BY AGNÈS VARDA, organized by Block Cinema in Evanston, filmfront in Pilsen, and the Cultural Service at the Consulate of France in Chicago, with independent programmer Kathleen Sachs, gathers together nine of Varda’s short films from the 1950s to the 1980s. Including travelogues (DU CÔTÉ DE LA CÔTE), works of portraiture (UNCLE YANCO), and singular political reportage (RÉPONSE DES FEMMES), these playful and ingenious short films reveal a filmmaker constantly seeking new folds in the fabric of everyday life. Through inquisitive, collaborative, and formally diverse works, these programs reflect that in Varda’s cinema, there are no auteurs—only others.

With the support of the Cultural Service at the Consulate General of France in Chicago.

Prints Courtesy of the Institut français in Paris.

Program II is at Filmfront.

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