The Beaches of Agnès

Beaches have always been important to Agnès Varda. Whether as the location of the plentiful and sunny summer holidays of her childhood, or in her temporary exile as a teenager in wartime France, or indeed as the location for the filming of her remarkable first feature film, La Pointe Courte, beaches have always held a special place in her imagination. In The Beaches Of Agnès, Varda, heroine of the French New Wave, returns once more to the beaches, using her early memories of the coast as a springboard for the film’s meditation on her youth. Weaving photography, archive footage, scenes from her own films, and present-day sequences, Varda takes us on a memorable voyage through her life. Idiosyncratic, engaging, and deeply moving, this is the autobiography of one of the essential cinematic poets of our time.