Black Panthers and Other Short Works

Q&A with Agnès Varda moderated by critic Melissa Anderson

A selection of short documentaries by Agnès Varda: Black Panthers is a casual, open-air portrait of a bustling “Free Huey” rally in Oakland that arose from Varda’s transformative encounter with the Black Panthers in 1968; Women Reply: Our Bodies Our Sex is a frank examination of how women are taking control over their bodies and lives; the exuberant Salut les Cubains is sourced from the vast cache of photographs Varda shot during her 1962 trip to newly post-Revolution Cuba; and Ulysse is a stunning essay film and a wide-ranging, concentrically expanding inquiry into history, memory, politics, and place.

Black Panthers
Agnès Varda, France, 1968, DCP, 31m
French with English subtitles
One of Varda’s most transformative encounters during her 1968 L.A. journey was with the Black Panthers, then at the height of their influence and fame. Her casual, open-air portrait of the group, centered on a bustling “Free Huey” rally in Oakland, is more densely packed with information than many of her other documentaries, but it’s made with no less delicacy, grace, and political urgency. New digital restoration!

Ulysse
Agnès Varda, France, 1982, DCP, 22m
French with English subtitles
The photograph at the center of this stunning essay film, one of the secret highlights of Varda’s filmography, was taken by Varda herself in the mid-1950s, but the role it plays here is closer to those of the central snapshot in Godard/Gorin’s Letter to Jane or the footage from Iceland that bookends Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil: a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging, concentrically expanding inquiry into history, memory, politics, and place. On the other hand, as Varda suggests near the end of her captivating voiceover, perhaps it’s nothing of the kind: The image is there. That’s all. New digital restoration!

Women Reply: Our Bodies Our Sex / Réponse de femmes
Agnès Varda, France, 1975, digital projection, 8m
French with English subtitles
In 1975, a television station gave seven female filmmakers seven minutes to answer the question “What does it mean to be a woman?” Agnès Varda answered with this frank assemblage, examining how women are taking control over their bodies and lives.

Salut les Cubains
Agnès Varda, France/Cuba, 1963, DCP, 30m
French with English subtitles
In December 1962, four years after the Cuban Revolution, Varda visited the country at the invitation of the Cuban Film Institute and came back with a cache of about 2,500 photographs. The breathless, zigzagging photo montage she made the following year out of 1,500 of those stills is a priceless artifact: a double portrait of a multiethnic country at a pivot point in its national history, and a European left filled with hope for the new republic’s future. New digital restoration!