From the Rocky Mountains to Martha’s Vineyard, from London to Barcelona to Beirut... Communities all over the world are holding film festivals that honor women’s contributions to the art and industry of motion pictures.
From the early works of Alice Guy Blache, Lois Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Lotte Reineger, Maya Deren and Mary Ellen Bute, to the films produced and/or directed by Agnes Varda, Lina Wertmuller and Chantal Akerman… and current powerful filmmakers Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay, Claire Denis, Kelly Reichardt and Greta Gerwig. So many more working for the studios and independently now, in film and TV, that it is difficult to list more than a small number here.
For most of the Twentieth Century women were downplayed and overlooked as film producers and directors. Early on, in the pre-1920s film industry, women directors and producers were appreciated. However, when the studios became giant industries, the moguls didn’t trust their power and riches to women. Film directing became primarily a man’s world.
With the incredible accessibility of motion pictures these days on big and small screens, it is entertaining and occasionally even heart-warming to create one’s own women’s film festival. This week I chose to honor Belgian-born French producer/director/writer Agnes Varda. I screened two features, Cleo from 5-7 from 1962, and Sans Toit ni loi (Vagabond) from 1985. But I couldn’t stop, even though it was getting late, so I topped off the evening with her short film from 1958, L’Opera Mouffe (Diary of a Pregnant Woman), an avant-garde look at a market street in the Latin Quarter of Paris.
Cleo from 5 to 7 is a fiction feature with documentary and avant-garde elements. A young and beautiful singer in Paris has taken tests to see if she has fatal cancer. The film starts at 5pm on the day she will receive good or bad news. It unfolds real time. We are taken on a series of adventures within Paris with her and various friends to the time she learns her fate. This film is listed on a number of sites as among the best films ever made. An amazing, cinematic film, it does not let viewers down.
Vagabond follows Mona, a lone young drifter, possibly nice looking but she presents herself unwashed. Mona’s story is told with a cast mainly of non-professional actors. We know her fate at the film’s start but follow her moves along a rural countryside carefully throughout. Vagabond is a one-of-a-kind film, particularly for its time, that won awards, including top prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
Agnes Varda died at age ninety in 2019, having lived a long and productive life. She was called “The Grandmother of the French New Wave” – an odd title because she was quite young during that time period. These Varda films and others are available on disc and for streaming through Criterion and the Criterion Channel.
