Varda lives on ... in a Cannes poster
Film festival gives famed filmmaker who recently died a rare and colourful honour
For the first time in memory, the Cannes Film Festival is honouring a recently departed filmmaker with the official poster for its 72nd edition, May 14-25.
It’s a lovely tribute to Agnès Varda, the Belgian-born French director, photographer and visual artist who died March 29 at the age of 90. Her landmark works include Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) and the Oscar-nominated Faces Places (2017). The poster shows Varda at age 26 in 1954, perched atop a technician’s helpful back as she makes her first feature, La Pointe Courte, which premièred at Cannes the following year.
Shot in the Pointe Courte neighbourhood of Sète, in the south of France, the film tells the story of a young married couple facing marital discord in a fishing village also enduring a crisis.
La Pointe Courte, shot on a budget of $14,000 (U.S.), is often cited as the forerunner of the iconoclastic cinema movement known as La Nouvelle Vague — the French New Wave.
Cannes uses its official posters to salute the art of cinema, often showing famous directors or actors. But at no time in recent memory has it been so quick to honour a recently-passed filmmaker.
Varda, however, was special to Cannes, premièring many of her films there. She also sat on the Palme d’Or jury in 2005, was president of the Caméra d’Or jury in 2013 and received a special lifetime achievement Palme d’Or in 2015.
“Like a manifesto, this still photo from the set (of La Pointe Courte) sums up everything about Agnès Varda: Her passion, aplomb and mischievousness,” a Cannes media release says.
“Ingredients of a free artist, forming a recipe she never stopped improving. Her 65 years of creativity ... almost match the age of the Festival de Cannes, (which) celebrates each year visions (that) rise higher ... Agnès Varda will be the inspirational guiding light of this 72nd edition of the Festival!”