Agnès Varda’s final film, Varda by Agnès will open November 22 in select cinemas in New York City, followed by a nationwide rollout.
Janus Films has acquired U.S. rights to the documentary. The film made its world premiere in February at the 2019 Berlin Film Fest, weeks before the celebrated member of French New Wave cinema died at 90 in Paris.
In Varda by Agnès — which is set to screen at the upcoming New York Film Festival — Varda turned the lens on herself and her artistic journey as a filmmaker and photographer.
“We felt it was important to make one last film where she would give some keys — her own — to her work; Varda by Agnès is rather a conversation,” Rosalie Varda, the filmmaker’s daughter and producer, said in a statement. “We completed the film for the Berlin Film Festival in February. The press conference to present the film was an intense and powerful moment for both of us. She knew it was her last and I, who thought she was eternal, realized that she was holding my hand to continue her work.”
To coincide with the release of the doc, Janus will also mount a touring retrospective of Varda’s work featuring more than 30 movies from Varda’s 60-plus-year career.
The retrospective will launch December 20 in New York at Film at Lincoln Center.
“Agnès Varda’s final film is a canny valedictory by one of the greatest filmmakers ever to wield a camera. It is a quintessential Varda film that not only gives us new ways of looking at her life and work, but new ways of looking at the world,” said Peter Becker, a partner in Janus Films. “Agnès was a friend and mentor to many of us at Janus Films, and we are especially happy and honored to join with Rosalie and the Ciné-tamaris family in celebrating her legacy with this grand retrospective.”
Oscar Record
In 2018, Varda became the oldest person ever to be nominated in a competitive Oscar category for her documentary Faces Places (Visages Villages), made with the French visual artist JR.
That same year, Varda received an honorary Oscar statuette.
Varda by Agnès will initially debut in New York at Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center.