Dir. Agnès Varda
2008, France, 112 min
French with English subtitles
Astral Projection is a monthly screening series exploring astrology through film curated by our Box Office Manager, Nic Kaneski. Join us in celebrating the beginning of each zodiac season with a screening embodying the qualities of the sign, directed by a filmmaker of the sign. For stargazers and skeptics alike and anyone interested in the intersection of astrology, pop culture, and identity.
“If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes. If we opened me up, we’d find beaches.” Originally intended to be Agnès Varda’s farewell to filmmaking, this enchanting self-portrait, made in her eightieth year, is a freewheeling journey through her life, career, and artistic philosophy. Revisiting the places that shaped her—from the North Sea beaches of Belgium where she spent her childhood to the Mediterranean village where she shot her first film to the boardwalks of Los Angeles where she lived with her husband Jacques Demy—Varda reflects on a lifetime of creation and inspiration, successes and setbacks, heartbreak and joy. Replete with images of wonder and whimsy—the ocean reflected in a kaleidoscope of mirrors, the streets of Paris transformed into an urban sand beach, the filmmaker herself ensconced in the belly of a whale—The Beaches of Agnès is the record of a life lived fully and passionately in the name of cinema.
Generously sponsored by IATSE 856 Manitoba.
The Beaches of Agnès is an intimate odyssey through the life and creative process of cherished Gemini filmmaker Agnes Varda. Simultaneously playful and earnest, Varda’s approach to art and life is teeming with curiosity and undeniably infectious.
– Nic Kaneski
For all its melancholy and its profound awareness of mortality, The Beaches of Agnès is one of the jolliest, more life-affirming self-portraits in recent cinema.
– Jonathan Romney, Sight & Sound
