LES PLAGES D'AGNÈS (AUSSER KONKURRENZ)

At the ripe old age of 80, the inimitable, irrepressible grandmother of the New Wave, Agnès Varda, offers us her most personal film to date. Les Plages d' Agnès is a uniquely reflective self-portrait - a collage of free associations, autobiographical details, film extracts, photographs, fantasies, memories and dreams. Varda contemplates life and creativity, death and aging. She recalls her career as a filmmaker, her time as a photographer, her personal life, friends, family, her great love Jacques Demy and the pain of his loss. There are dreamlike sequences. Varda fools around and dresses up as a potato. Chris Marker appears as an animated cat. And then there are the beaches - the thread that links this patchwork together: Sète, where the filmmaker spent her wartime childhood and made her first film; Noirmoutier, a place of calm reflection; and an artificial beach on the Rue Daguerre in Paris stretching from Varda’s home to her editing room. "If you open people up, you'll find landscapes. If you open me, you'll find beaches."

"Many old people wish to tell their life. As an old filmmaker, with the enthusiasm and energy of my youth, I tried to find a style and a form to tell my memories, my encounters, the ups and downs of my life. I shot my film as a kaleidoscope, a collage, a fantasy." Agnès Varda