Begirada dokumentala. Klasiko handiak : La pointe courte + Cléo de 5 à 7 = Mirada documental. Grandes clásicos : La pointe courte + Cléo de 5 à 7 = Documentary gaze. Great classics : La pointe courte + Cléo de 5 à 7

Journal de France, Raymond Depardon, Francia, 2012, 100’

Depardon, Varda, Wiseman: three looks by three documentary makers whose names are in themselves classics in the history of cinema. There is a very simple connection between the work of Depardon and the work of Varda: all of Depardon’s work has to do with his work as a photographer. And the first films by Agnès Varda are entirely influenced by her documentary gaze from her first steps as a photographer. We’ll have the chance to know her two first films, that would help us understand the importance of her more than 60 years professional career. In the case of Wiseman, his work is key to understanding the history of American documentary cinema. For this cycle, we shall recover his much acclaimed first feature, which will allows us establish historical, thematic and style connections between these three great masters of observation.

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Homage to Agnès Varda. 2x1 session

Saio bikoitz honek zinearen historiako ezinbesteko zinemagileari omenaldia izan nahi du, bere lehenengo lanak berreskuratuz 

18:00
La pointe courte, Agnès Varda, France, 1954, 86’

Varda’s first feature, made during the time when the nouvelle vague was something that still couldn’t be imagined, when those directors, male and female, who were going to incorporate modernity into their stories and images were still posing to themselves the questions that were going to change cinema forever. Varda was then a young amateur photographer who decided to take the leap into the world of cinema and embarked upon her first experience, with the creation of her own cooperative.

The film, on the one hand, draws on neorealism and offers a documentary-like portrait of the daily life in the fishing district of a village in south west France: day-to-day life there, with problems facing the people there, for work and survival. At the same time, it tells the story of a young couple in crisis – she, Parisian, he, a native of the village. This very free combination between a story of intellectual fiction and the more observational prism was something of a novelty at the time, and proved a great revelation in terms of the type of cinema that was on the cusp of being brought to the world. Among those credited in the film, the name of another young filmmaker to whom special attention must be drawn, just so we are in no doubt we are indeed talking about a cardinal, most fundamental moment in the history of cinema: one Alain Resnais, credited as editor.  

21:00
Cléo de 5 à 7, Agnès Varda, France, 1962, 90’

Is Agnès Varda the youngest, most curious and freest filmmaker in the world? Now eighty, we can say “yes, she is”, because her spirit and way of understanding cinema and life as a whole are still so purely “nouvelle vague”. At least, she showed this with her latest film Visages Villages, premiered in the San Sebastian Film Festival to celebrate her Donostia Prize. But, how did everything begin?

Let’s make a review to the birth of the Nouvelle Vague: 1958, Claude Chabrol, Le beau Serge. 1959, François Truffaut, Les quatre cents coups. 1959, Alain Resnais, Hiroshima mon amour. 1960, Jean-Luc Godard, À bout de souffle. 1961, François Truffaut, Jules et Jim. 1962, Agnès Varda, Cléo de 5 à 7: Cléo is a pop singer from Paris that is wandering around the city waiting for a medical result. Ninety minutes of real time that reveal her life, dreams and fears; and the portrait of the youth facing future and destiny.