Agnes Varda’s – THE BEACHES OF AGNES – on the Academy’s short-list

Posted by editor@vimooz.com on November 25, 2009 under Academy award, Documentary | Comments are off for this article

The Beaches of Agnes4

“The Beaches of Agnès”, a film by Agnès Varda, was recently announced as selection by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of for the short-list Documentary Feature category. If nominated, it will be the first Oscar nomination for filmmaker/legend Agnès Varda, who at 81, has been making films for the past 50 years. Distributed by Cinema Guild, “The Beaches of Agnès” has received rave press during its theatrical release, including a 96% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it is the best reviewed documentary of the year, according to Metacritic.

Agnès Varda, whom A.O. Scott in The New York Times deemed “a treasure” when writing about her acclaimed documentary, “The Gleaners And I”, returns with a movie that synthesizes 50 years of filmmaking, and 80 years of a life well-lived. An early member of the French New Wave, Varda has worked with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Jane Birkin, Michel Piccoli, Catherine Deneuve and Philippe Noiret – not to mention Harrison Ford, the Black Panthers and Viva. Stories of her childhood in Brussels and adolescence in occupied Paris, of Los Angeles in the ‘60s, and of life in her 14^e arrondissement Paris neighborhood are melded with clips from both documentary and fiction work. Husband/filmmaker Jacques Demy, who died in 1990, is an abiding presence. Varda is an avid collector: of people and places, sensual experiences and intellectual preoccupations, personal commitments and political principles. She is a mother and wife, a feminist, nature-lover and urban-dwelling artist. Above all, she is a woman in love with the cinema whose new movie perfectly expresses her sentiment, “While I live, I remember.