Zwischenspiel 18/19

Visages Villages (Faces and Places)
Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda, Visages Villages, 2017 Courtesy by Weltkino
© Agnès Varda, Visages Villages, 2017 | Courtesy by Weltkino

06/02/2019 | 9 p.m. | Introduction: Herlinde Koelbl
Filmmuseum München | Tickets: 089 / 23 39 64 50

Working for the first time with a co-director, French artist JR, the 90 years old veteran documentary  maker Agnès Varda makes study of ‘faces and places’.
“Visages, Villages is a movie about itself: the subjects are so warm and wonderful it’s a wise move. Varda and JR travel to small French towns in his van, which is decorated like an enormous camera. Inside is a photo-booth and large format prints spit out the side. Is there actually an assistant dropping the images out? Yes, probably, but while this movie is about the process of making art, it doesn’t want to destroy the magic entirely.” (The Guardian)

Agnès Varda will be honoured with the Berlinale Camera 2019.

Agnès Varda is one of the most important contemporary francophone filmmakers. She started out as a theatre photographer in Paris before shooting her first feature film in 1954, with no prior filmmaking experience. Through Alain Resnais, who edited the film, Varda first came into contact with the circle surrounding the Cahiers du Cinéma, who would later go on to form the core of the French Nouvelle Vague. Visages, villages (Faces Places), made in collaboration with French artist JR, was nominated for the 2018 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

JR (Juste Ridicule) is the pseudonym of a French photographer and artist whose identity is unconfirmed. Describing himself as a photograffeur, he flyposts large black-and-white photographic images in public locations, in a manner similar to the appropriation of the built environment by the graffiti artist. He states that the street is “the largest art gallery in the world”.

Herlinde Koelbl is since the end of the 1980’s Germany’s most widely discussed photographer and documentary maker. She is knewn for her portraits of well-known German personalities from politics and business world. Mostly she offers large-scale thematic projects, often dealing with societal taboos. Since the end of the 1980`s one of Germany’s most widely discussed photographers.