The esteemed film director began as a photographer, capturing the postwar freedom of Paris – where a new exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet now presents her as a vital part of the city’s creative history
The French cinéaste Agnès Varda, who died in 2019 at the age of 90, had many lives. Initially a photographer, she broke through as a film-maker with Cléo from 5 to 7 in 1962, and then reinvented herself in her late 70s with art installations that toured the world’s most prestigious contemporary exhibition spaces, from the Venice Biennale to the Los Angeles Museum. Her last film documentaries such as the autobiographical Les plages d’Agnès (2008) and Visages, Villages (2017) reaped awards worldwide.
The elf-looking gamine with her eternal short bob and soft melodious voice showed through her life a formidable determination, imposing herself in a man’s world. Today, Varda is a French monument. So much so that her work is now exhibited for the first time in one of Paris’s most iconic and historic museums, the Musée Carnavalet, dedicated to the history of the French capital.
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