Film at Lincoln Center announces its holiday series, a career-spanning retrospective of Agnès Varda, the most comprehensive survey to date of the late filmmaker’s vast canon, opening December 20 through January 6 and presented in partnership with Janus Films. Tickets are on sale now. The director’s final work, Varda by Agnès, is a 57th New York Film Festival Main Slate selection and will open at FLC on November 22 (tickets available here) to coincide with the retrospective. Film at Lincoln Center has also announced the 57th New York Film Festival will be dedicated to Agnès Varda.

When Agnès Varda died earlier this year at age 90, the world lost one of its most inspirational cinematic radicals. From her 1954 feature debut La Pointe Courte, a groundbreaking fiction-documentary hybrid, to her New Wave treasures Cléo from 5 to 7 and Le Bonheur to her inquiries into those on society’s outskirts like Vagabond (NYFF23), The Gleaners and I (NYFF38), and the 2017 Oscar nominee Faces Places (NYFF55), she made enduring films that were both forthrightly political and gratifyingly mercurial. Her cinema, which included a wide variety of forms—from lyrical nonfiction portraits to fanciful fictions to a political, feminist musical—and which were made with all kinds of equipment and budgets, were an inspiration to filmmakers all over the world for decades. Film at Lincoln Center is proud to present a retrospective of Varda’s work, which features more than 30 films from her 60-plus-year career, and kicks off a nationwide tour.  

“Agnès’s creativity and versatility within the medium has always amazed me,” said FLC Associate Director of Programming and series curator Florence Almozini. “With her shorts, narrative films, and documentaries, Varda was singular in her ability to foster open discussions and integrate candid encounters into her art.”

“Film at Lincoln Center has had a rich history with Varda,” said FLC Executive Director Lesli Klainberg. “In 2015, she appeared in person for a retrospective of her documentary work as part of Art of the Real, and she has been a fixture at the New York Film Festival, with ten films selected over six decades of the festival’s history—most recently in 2017 with Faces Places. We’re pleased to dedicate this year’s 57th edition to her memory.”

The retrospective coincides with the release of her final work, Varda by Agnès, screening in this year’s 57th New York Film Festival and opening at Film at Lincoln Center on November 22. Partially constructed of onstage interviews and lectures, and interspersed with a wealth of clips and archival footage, the film guides us through Varda’s career, from her movies to her remarkable still photography to her delightful and creative installation work. It’s a fitting farewell to a filmmaker, told in her own words. A Janus Films release. 

Retrospective titles include:
Agnès de ci de l Varda
The Beaches of Agnès
Le Bonheur
Cléo from 5 to 7
Daguerreotypes
Documenteur
The Gleaners and I
The Gleaners and I: Two Years Later
Jacquot de Nantes
La Pointe Courte
Lions Love ( … and Lies)
Mur Murs
One Hundred and One Nights
One Sings, the Other Doesn’t
Vagabond
The World of Jacques Demy
The Young Girls Turn 25

Short Films
Along the Coast (Du cté de la cte)
Black Panthers
Elsa la rose
Les iancés du pont Mac Donald
Lion Vanishing
L’opéra-mouffe
The Pleasure of Love in Iran
Salut les Cubains
The So-called Caryatids
Ulysse
Uncle Yanco
Women Reply
You’ve Got Beautiful Stairs, You Know
7p., cuis., s. de b, … à saisir

See a complete list of films here.

Agnès Varda in 2000 at the 38th NYFF. Photo by Godlis.