A Cinema Shack: The Tent of Vagabond (2022). Photo credit: Bernd Brundert.While most can hope to live authentically in the one life allotted them, some are able to expand beyond such limitations. One way is through art, which not only arouses an inner life that may stand apart from one's corporeal being, but also extends past any sort of physical life into the realm of the sublime, where it survives so long as there are people willing to appreciate it. The French photographer, filmmaker, and installation artist Agnès Varda is often referred to as having lived three lives, testifying to a career divided into three parts of artistic exploration but which are nevertheless interconnected, ultimately comprising a distinguished whole. Accordingly, Varda favored the triptych across much of her oeuvre and specifically in her installations; the division into three was as consequential to her in application as in theory.In considering...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Fatal Attraction (1987)The next season of Karina Longsworth's podcast You Must Remember This will focus on the thorny and sumptuous erotic films of the 1980s and 1990s, including films by Adrian Lyne, Brian De Palma, and Stanley Kubrick. The two-part season will start on April 5. Ahead of its theatrical release, the long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick will play at a special screening in Cannes for the 75th edition of the festival in May. This year's Cannes Film Festival also has a new official partner: TikTok. The partnership will include exclusive festival-related content for users and an in-app competition called #TikTokShortFilm. James Morosini's I Love My Dad and Rosa Ruth Boesten's documentary Master of Light lead this year's SXSW Film Festival awards. Actor William Hurt has died at the age of 71. Hurt was known...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Fever (Maya Da-Rin)

The Fever, director-cum-visual artist Da-Rin’s first full-length feature project, puts a human face to a statistic that hardly captures the genocide Brazil is suffering. This is not just a wonderfully crafted, superb exercise in filmmaking, a multilayered tale that seesaws between social realism and magic. It is a call to action, an unassuming manifesto hashed in the present tense but reverberating as a plea from a world already past us, a memoir of sorts. – Leonardo G. (full review)

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

French New Wave

Dive into one of the most fertile eras of moving pictures with a new massive 45-film series on The Criterion Channel dedicated to the French New Wave. Highlights include Le...

Delia Fiallo, an author and screenwriter known as the “mother of the Latin American telenovela,” has died, according to the Associated Press. She was 96.

Fiallo’s caregiver told the AP that she died Tuesday at her home in Coral Gables, Fla., just five days before her 97th birthday. A cause of death was not given, but the caregiver said that the writer was surrounded by her children.

Fiallo was one of the most celebrated writers in the romance genre, having penned 43 telenovelas, with over 80 adaptations of her work around the world. Fiallo’s most well-known works include “Kassandra,” “Cristal,” “Leonela,” “Esmeralda,” “La Zulianita,” “Lucecita,” “María del Mar,” “La Señorita Elena,” “Tu Mundo y el Mío,” “Guadalupe” and “Marielena.”

Born in Havana, Cuba on July 4, 1924, Fiallo studied philosophy and literature in university, eventually earning her doctorate in 1948. In 1949, Fiallo began writing radionovelas, and eventually transitioned to telenovelas. Her first telenovela adaptation was of “Soraya,...

"Plants may sweat profusely but never sully themselves."—W.H. AudenFull Bloom is a series, written by Patrick Holzapfel and illustrated by Ivana Miloš, that reconsiders plants in cinema. Directors have given certain flowers, trees or herbs special attention for many different reasons. It’s time to give them the credit they deserve and highlight their contributions to cinema, in full bloom.It’s impossible to miss the sunflowers in Agnès Varda’s not-quite-as-sunny-as-it-seems Le bonheur (1965). They appear right in the title sequence of the film, accompanied by title cards in the yellow of the flowers. Throughout the film they reappear in different shapes and forms, for example on dresses, postcards, and in bouquets. Varda’s film not only deals with a man perfectly happy with both his wife and his mistress, she deals with the way this world may look in his mind. Shot in beautiful colours by cinematographers...

The Guadalajara Film Festival’s industry centerpiece, its Encuentro de Co-produccion, a springboard for Latin American feature film projects, unspools this week online, as directors and producers look to catch the eye of the international marketplace and secure key sales, distribution and production partners.

Guadalajara has long rejected the idea that gender-based quotas are needed when programming a festival while demonstrating an organic level of inclusion in its industry sections that should make some European festivals blush. The 2020 Meeting is no exception. More than half of the projects set to pitch this week are directed by women, with just as many featuring female producers or co-producers.

As important as any statistics though, the kinds of films that women are pitching at Guadalajara break moulds as well. Gone are the days when the industry expected women directors to tell women’s stories. Now, the women pitching at Guadalajara can present horror,...

I’ve spent most of the summer spying on my next-door neighbors. It’s not particularly dignified—especially since I’m literally peeking through my horrible kitchen blinds—but what else do you do when you’re stuck in an apartment by yourself all day? My neighbors’ eldest son is a competitive swimmer, who spent the early part of summer doing “laps” via a resistance harness in an above-ground pool the family set up in their small Queens backyard space, which is when I became fascinated by people I had never paid attention to until a pandemic forced us all to stay home 24/7. This situation reminded me of Daguerréotypes, Agnès Varda’s 1975 documentary about her humble shopkeeping neighbors on the Rue Daguerre—a film shot within 300 feet of her apartment because she couldn’t be away from home while caring for her young son. Rather than allow her frustrating physical constraints to limit her,...

Women are dominating the Chilean film industry more than ever, replicating what is happening across most of Latin America. In Bolivia, 85% of the producers are said to be women and in Mexico, nearly half of the audiovisual workforce is female. Of the 10 key Chilean titles participating at the Marché du Film Online Producers Network Spotlight this year, eight are produced by women.

Films made by this ever-growing generation of female producers are “ever more robust, of a larger caliber, with big casts, and made in international co-production, not small films made with just Chilean funding,” says Constanza Arena, executive director of Chilean film-tv promotion board CinemaChile. She cites Florencia Larrea’s “My Tender Matador,” Macarena Lopez’s “La Felicidad,” Gabriela Sandoval’s “Jailbreak Pact” and Karina Jury’s “Vera de Verdad,” co-produced with Italy and selected for the Marché du Film’s Frontières genre showcase.

“The whole industry is evolving...

The Criterion Collection has announced a new treat for cinephiles coming this summer. The Complete Films of Agnès Varda, a 15-disc collector’s set, will feature all 39 of the late French icon’s features, shorts, and documentaries. The set hits shelves on August 11 this year.

Each of the 15 discs presents a curation of films organized by themes that marked Varda’s work, including explorations of Paris in “Cléo From 5 to 7,” studies of married life with “Le Bonheur,” her collaborations with Jane Birkin in “Jane B. par Agnès V.” and “Kung-Fu Master!,” and Jacques Demy with “Jacquot d Nantes,” “The Young Girls Turn 25,” and “The World of Jacques Demy,” and much more. She was married to Demy up until his death in 1990.

The full list of included titles is below. The set also features a 200-page book surveying Varda’s career, which launched in 1955 with “La Pointe Courte,” followed...

After getting a tease and the announcement of a theatrical touring retrospective, The Criterion Collection have now announced their Agnès Varda boxset, aptly titled The Complete Films of Agnès Varda. A gorgeous, epic undertaking, this treasure trove of cinematic beauty is split into different aspects of the Belgian-born French director’s life and career.

Arriving on a fifteen-disc Blu-ray release on August 11, the set features digital restorations of thirty-nine films, including the first home-video presentations of Les créatures, Jacquot de Nantes, and the television series Agnès de ci de là Varda. There’s also over seven hours of archival programs from Varda, a 200-page book, video introductions by the late filmmaker herself, and much, much more. Check out the details below.

The Films

Agnès Forever – Varda by Agnès (2019), Les 3 boutons (2015)

Early Varda – La Pointe Courte (1955), Ô saisons, ô châteaux (1958), Du côté de la côte (1958)

Around Paris – Cléo from 5 to 7...

Chilean producers to track, who will be forming part of the Berlinale’s 2020 Country in Focus dedicated to Chile. Five are well-known, another five on the rise :

Up-and-coming

María José Díaz

Dos Be Producciones

An executive producer and investigative journalist for TV series and doc-features, Diaz is an executive producer at Dos Be Prods. and founder of Galgo Storytelling, a transmedia content producer. Projects in development: Doc “Haganse la Luz,” Ignacia Merino and Isabel Reyes’ debuts, and docu series “Nepen” about Chile’s indigenous Mapuches.

Yeniffer Fasciani

Niebla Producciones

A 2015 Berlinale Talents participant, Fasciani is a partner/co-founder of Niebla Prods. In 2016 she produced TV series “Martin, Man and Legend” for La Santé Films and was executive director of Dci, a Chilean film distributor. Upcoming projects: Carola Quezada’s “Perros sin Cola,” Chilean-Japanese co-production “Green Grass” by Ignacio Ruiz, and pregnant boxer drama “A La Deriva.”

Cynthia García

Cyan Prods

Founder of Cyan Prods.

Varda passed away following a short battle with cancer.

Agnès Varda, the Belgian-born director whose work played a pivotal part in the French New Wave, has died aged 90.

She died shortly after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a statement from her family given to French news agency Afp. It said: ”The director and artist Agnès Varda died at home on Thursday night due to cancer, with her family and loved ones surrounding her.”

Her death comes just weeks after Varda put in a fitting final appearance at the Berlin International Film Festival with the documentary Varda By Agnès.

An extended filmed masterclass of sorts,...

Varda passed away following a short battle with cancer.

Agnes Varda, the Belgian-born director whose work played a pivotal part in the French New Wave, has died aged 90.

According to a statement from her family given to Afp, she passed away following a short battle with cancer. It said: ”The director and artist Agnès Varda died at home on Thursday night due to cancer, with her family and loved ones surrounding her.”

He final film, Varda By Agnès, premiered at the Berlin Film earlier this year, where it was awarded the Berlinale Camera award.

In 2017 she became the first female...

Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)

This week’s question: This past weekend saw the release of “Mute” and “Annihilation,” two original science-fiction movies that were made on studio budgets (an increasingly rare breed). With that in mind, what is the best sci-fi movie that most people haven’t seen?

Candice Frederick (@ReelTalker), Freelance for Vice, /Film, Thrillist, and more

“Advantageous.” Jennifer Phang directed this amazing sci-fi drama that centers Gwen, an Asian-American mother (Jacqueline Kim, who’s also the co-writer of the film) who has to come to terms with her “advanced” age in a youth-obsessed society. She has to resort to drastic and untraditional measures in order to ensure that her young daughter...

The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted Tuesday night (September 5) to present Honorary Awards to writer-director Charles Burnett, cinematographer Owen Roizman, actor Donald Sutherland and director Agnès Varda. The four Oscar® statuettes will be presented at the Academy’s 9th Annual Governors Awards on Saturday, November 11, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.

“This year’s Governors Awards reflect the breadth of international, independent and mainstream filmmaking, and are tributes to four great artists whose work embodies the diversity of our shared humanity,” said Academy President John Bailey.

Born in Mississippi and raised in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, Burnett is an independent filmmaker whose work has been praised for its portrayal of the African-American experience. He wrote, directed, produced, photographed and edited his first feature film, “Killer of Sheep,” in 1977. His other features include “My Brother’s Wedding,...

The annual honorary Governors Awards are when Oscar lobbyists see the first results of the season, and this batch is notable for its global diversity: a Belgian woman filmmaker, a Canadian movie star, and an African-American director. The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted September 5, and they go to actor Donald Sutherland, writer-director Agnes Varda, and American independent filmmaker Charles Burnett and cinematographer Owen Roizman.

The statues will be presented November 11 at the 9th annual Governors Awards ceremony at Hollywood & Highland.

“This year’s Governors Awards reflect the breadth of international, independent and mainstream filmmaking, and are tributes to four great artists whose work embodies the diversity of our shared humanity,” said Academy president John Bailey.

Read More:New Academy President John Bailey is Willing to Ask if Movies Need Theaters For Oscar Qualification, and Other Radical Ideas

Never nominated for an Oscar, Canadian-born...

The annual honorary Governors Awards are when Oscar lobbyists see the first results of the season, and this batch is notable for its global diversity: a Belgian woman filmmaker, a Canadian movie star, and an African-American director. The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted September 5, and they go to actor Donald Sutherland, writer-director Agnes Varda, and American independent filmmaker Charles Burnett and cinematographer Owen Roizman.

The statues will be presented November 11 at the 9th annualGovernors Awards ceremony at Hollywood & Highland.

“This year’s Governors Awards reflect the breadth of international, independent and mainstream filmmaking, and are tributes to four great artists whose work embodies the diversity of our shared humanity,” said Academy president John Bailey.

Read More:New Academy President John Bailey is Willing to Ask if Movies Need Theaters For Oscar Qualification, and Other Radical Ideas

Canadian-born Sutherland began his career — boasting more...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Philip Seymour Hoffman retro has a banner weekend, including Doubt and Synecdoche, New York introduced by John Patrick Shanley and followed by a Charlie Kaufman Q & A, respectively.

The logical pairing of Agnès Varda‘s Le Bonheur and Hype Williams‘ Belly happens on Sunday.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

If you like good things,...

Mubi is showing Eric Rohmer's The Marquise of O (1976) in the United States from August 27 - September 26, 2016. A pronouncement—a mysterious pregnancy and an offer of marriage. Incredulity and laughter. “Suddenly, the war—.”Wry distance followed by a jarring plunge into chaos—so opens The Marquise of O, Éric Rohmer’s remarkable (and remarkably faithful) adaptation of the 1808 novella by Heinreich von Kleist. Set in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars, the story begins with the assault of a castle inhabited by a colonel and his family. During the attack, the colonel’s widowed daughter, Julietta (Edith Clever), is set upon by invading Russian soldiers, but is rescued by Count F (Bruno Ganz), a Russian officer. After the castle has been surrendered, the Count visits the Marquise in her bedchamber, and, in the most delicately composed sequence of the film—a shot of the Marquise in a potion-induced slumber; a cut...

Cinematographer who for many years was Claude Chabrol’s ‘third eye’

There is no cinematographer in the history of cinema who worked so consistently for so long with the same director as Jean Rabier, who has died aged 88. To achieve this record, Rabier worked on more than 40 films with Claude Chabrol, and that was more than three-quarters of his entire output.

Yet he will perhaps be remembered most for the two films he shot for Jacques Demy – Bay of Angels (La Baie des Anges, 1963) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, 1964) – and the two for Demy’s wife, Agnès Varda: Cléo from Five to Seven (Cléo de 5 à 7, 1961), and Happiness (Le Bonheur, 1965).

Continue reading...

“Criminally unfair. Those are the two words that spring to mind when I consider the fate of female directors throughout the short history of the cinematic medium. Not enough opportunity. Appalling sexism. Terrible chance and circumstances, coupled with biases, slander and mistrust,” our friend Scout Tafoya stated when asking a group of critics for their favorite films directed by female filmmakers. He added, “When I began asking for these lists from all the critics below many replied reluctantly. Their reasoning that so many of their films would be modern, that so many of the classics would be homogenous, is not without justification. But it’s no one’s fault that we all fall back on the same seven classics.”

He continues, “It’s a worldwide shortage of support and funding for female artists. It’s a lack of distribution of more esoteric work by women. It’s many major film...

Bridge of Spies, Jane Got a Gun, Steve Jobs junkets cancelled.

Most Paris cinemas were due to reopen their doors on Monday in the aftermath of terror attacks on the French capital that killed at least 132 people and left 350 injured, 99 severely.

In a campaign to mark France’s three days of national mourning, which entered its final day on Monday, the National Federation for French Cinemas (Fncf) announced it was making available a silent, seven-minute Dcp showing the “Peace for Paris” symbol and suggested cinemas played the clip ahead of screenings.

“Cinema theatres are among the most important places of culture in the heart of the city… Cinema must participate actively in fostering social links and national unity during this moment of mourning and solidarity,” said Fncf president Richard Patry.

The design incorporating the Eiffel Tower into the peace symbol, created by French graphic designer Jean Jullien in the wake of the attacks, has become...

Bridge of Spies, Jane Got a Gun, Steve Jobs junkets cancelled.

Most Paris cinemas were due to reopen their doors on Monday in the aftermath of terror attacks on the French capital that killed at least 132 people and left 350 injured, 99 severely.

In a campaign to mark France’s three days of national mourning, which entered its final day on Monday, the National Federation for French Cinemas (Fncf) announced it was making available a silent, seven-minute Dcp showing the “Peace for Paris” symbol and suggested cinemas played the clip ahead of screenings.

“Cinema theatres are among the most important places of culture in the heart of the city… Cinema must participate actively in fostering social links and national unity during this moment of mourning and solidarity,” said Fncf president Richard Patry.

The design incorporating the Eiffel Tower into the peace symbol, created by French graphic designer Jean Jullien in the wake of the attacks, has become...

French director is the first woman and only the fourth person to receive the honour after Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Agnès Varda is to receive an honorary Palme d’or at the 68th Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24).

The French filmmaker will the first female director to be given the honour. Previously, only Woody Allen, in 2002, Clint Eastwood, in 2009, and Bernardo Bertolucci, in 2011, have been granted this distinction.

“And yet my films have never sold as much as theirs,” she said of following in their footsteps with her well-known sense of humour.

The award is given by the festival’s board of directors to renowned directors whose works have achieved a global impact but who have never won Cannes’ top prize - the Palme d’or.

Varda, 86, is a photographer, writer, actress, director and visual artist.

She studied photography and learned the ropes at the Avignon Festival, where she was...

Update: Pawlikowski is only third Polish director to win Efa’s top prize; Steve McQueen pays tribute to Jean Vigo; Ukrainian diector Oleg Sentsov gets an empty seat at the awards in Riga.

Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida was the big winner at this year’s European Film Awards in Riga, picking up five awards, including the top honour of European Film 2014 as well as the People’s Choice Award

“It’s been a fantastic night for us and a great night for Poland,” Pawlikowski said as he went up onto the stage of Latvia’s National Opera House for the fourth time on Saturday evening (December 13).

Earlier, when receiving the European Director 2014 trophy, the UK-based director explained that two of the film-makers competing for this honour — Turkey’s Nure Bilge Ceylan and Russia’s Andrey Zvyagintsev — are his favourite directors working today. “Thank you for being losers — this time,” he quipped...

Timothy Spall and Marion Cotillard have both won at the European Film Awards.

The pair took home the European Actor and Actress awards, while Polish film Ida dominated the night and won five awards.

Ida won best European Film, as well as screenplay and cinematography awards. Its director Paweł Pawlikowski was also awarded, and the film won the Efa's People's Choice Award as well.

Steve McQueen picked up the European Achievement in World Cinema award, while Agnès Varda took home the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The ceremony, which takes place in a different European city each year, was hosted at the Latvian National Opera House in Riga on Saturday (December 13).

A full list of winners is presented below:

European Film - Ida

European Comedy - The Mafia Kills Only in the Summer

European Director - Paweł Pawlikowski, Ida

European Actress - Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night

European Actor - Timothy Spall,...

Update, 12:55 Pm Pt: Pawel Pawlikowski’s Polish drama Ida took the Best European Film prize at the European Film Awards tonight in Riga, Latvia. The movie also won for Best Director, Cinematographer and Screenwriter, as well as being the People’s Choice honoree; missing out only in the Best Actress category. The European Film Awards have become something of a harbinger for what’s to come later in the season. The last two years’ winners — The Great Beauty and Amour — went on to scoop the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It’s undeniable that Ida has a lot of heat on it, but tonight’s wins don’t make Academy glory a foregone conclusion — there are also a lot of other contenders from outside Europe.

Pawlikowski’s black-and-white shot Ida follows a young woman who is about to take her holy orders to become a nun when she...

If you want to know why I have had such a hard time sharing my adventures in Los Angeles in real time from the AFI festival which wrapped on Thursday, blame Emma Thompson. She killed me!

Emma the night I met her / Mary Poppins party decor

The truth is that I get far less starstruck these days than I did a handful of years ago when I first began interviewing celebrities regularly. But sometimes my inner child still spazzes out, and comes bouncing to the surface like a squealing fanboy. I know I'm supposed to be embarrassed by this but the truth is that it feels good.

Enthusiasm is a form of social courage"

-Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Guru 

I never want to be one of those jaded film critics who has seen it all and doesn't enjoy anything. So... back to that Saving Mr Banks party. After chatting with...

Justine Smith

Bright Star, Jane Campion

Orlando, Sally Potter

Trouble Every Day, Claire Denis

Cleo 5 a 7, Agnes Varda

A New Leaf, Elaine May

The Night Porter, Liliana Cavani

American Psycho, Mary Harron

Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat

Point Break, Kathryn Bigelow

Everyone Else, Maren Ade

Ricky D

Connection, Shirley Clarke

Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold

35 Shots of Rhum, Claire Denis

Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Derin

Seven Beauties, Lina Wertmuller

The Hitch-Hiker, Ida Lupino

Lina Wertmuller- Swept Away

Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt

Headless Woman, Lucrecia Martel

Xxy, Lucía Puenzo

Special mention:

Skyscraper – Shirley Clarke

Wasp – Andrea Arnold

On Dangerous Ground – Ida Lupino (uncredited)

Wanda

Chris Clemente

Little Miss Sunshine, Valerie Faris

American Psycho, Mary Harron

Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola

We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne Ramsay

Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold

Monster, Patty Jenkins

A League of Their Own, Penny Marshall

Wayne’s World, Penelope Spheeris

Clueless, Amy Heckerling

Point Break,...

Filmmaker Agnès Varda and friend.

Editor's note: "The Beaches of Agnes" opens in a limited run in New York and L.A. this week for Academy Award consideration. If you reside on either coast, do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to "Beaches."

Agnès Varda Hits the Beach

By

Alex Simon

Born in Belgium in 1928, Agnès Varda is renowned for being the only female member of France’s legendary “Nouvelle Vague” (which also includes such luminaries as Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Varda’s late husband, Jacques Demy) school of filmmaking when, in 1954, she formed a film company called Cine-Tamaris for her first feature, La Pointe Courte. It earned her the title of “Grand Mother of the French New Wave,” at the tender age of 26.

Varda has made 33 films since then, alternating between shorts and features, fiction and documentaries. Some of her most famous titles include Cleo from 5 to 7...

Start: 06/24/2009 End: 06/27/2009 Timezone: America/Los Angeles Start: 06/24/2009 End: 06/27/2009 Timezone: America/Los Angeles If you're in Los Angeles, catch a crapload of films by legendary Varda June 24-27th 2009! A gifted and outspoken feminist and one of the most acclaimed directors anywhere in the world, Agnès Varda could be considered the prototype of today's independent filmmaker. Varda is a survivor, a stubborn and patient observer of her time and her people, like the pop singer in Cleo from 5 to 7, the lovers in Le Bonheur or the drifter in Vagabond. "I have fought so much since I started ... for something that comes from emotion, from visual emotion, sound emotion, feeling, and finding a shape for that," Varda has said...

Varda directed her first feature, La Pointe Courte, in 1954, with no formal training in filmmaking. The movie has often been identified as the film that started the French New Wave ("and a famous flop,...