French Women Filmmakers • Agnès Varda

Les glaneurs et la glaneuse / The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000, 82 min. Documentary, France)

I wanted to make a documentary. And then this little digital camera pushed me to create something personal, I wanted to seep into the film in a carnal way. I slipped in among the gleaners like a film-maker-gleaner.  – Agnès Varda

A cliché in detective fiction, “look for the woman” means to look for the source of mayhem to solve the mystery… This is exactly what we’ve done – look for la femme behind the camera to bring you the most memorable films made by women from France and beyond.

Armed with her curiosity and a digital camera, Agnès Varda set out on the roads of France to film the various ways and reasons for gleaning. The result is The Gleaners and I, a remarkable backpacker documentary that recounts the social violence of our wasteful society, but also the pleasure of collecting. Filming itself is gleaning… 

The selection of this film at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival in the Feature Film category (Out of Competition) paved the way for the recognition of documentaries at large festivals.

With a complimentary glass of Bourgogne Louis Jadot. Enter a chance to win Sofitel’s Le Bar gift certificate at this screening!

Post-screening discussion with Nick Davis, Associate Professor of English and Gender Studies at Northwestern University. Series curated by Nick Davis, Aimée Laberge and Paprika Bonnin-Occansey

* Entrée Libre for students with ID on-site/.edu addresses online. High school, college or university.

About Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda was born in Ixelles, Belgium, in 1928, but raised in France, and died in 2019, in Paris. She first studied art history before pursuing a career in photography. As the official photographer of the Théatre National Populaire from 1951 to 1961, she discovered an interest in both theater and film. Varda’s first film, La Pointe Courte, is considered to be a major influence on the French cinema movement of the 1960s known as the New Wave. She then released a second feature-length film, Cleo from 5 to 7, which brought international attention and was her first commercial success in 1961. In 1962, Varda married French director Jacques Demy, and they stayed together until his death in 1990.

She wrote and directed feature-length and short films in Europe and the U.S. throughout her whole life, films which are known for their blend of personal history, social commentary, and dramatic intensity, often seen from a feminist perspective.

Trailer here