Agnès Varda and the Reinvention of Cinema as an Art Form
2025
Agnès Varda was a prolific French film director whose career spanned over six decades. Her work was innovative and unique, and challenged classical cinema in an experimental yet nuanced manner. This book details Varda’s contribution to the French New Wave, analysing Varda’s early documentaries and narrative features, and contextualising them against the rapidly changing French film industry. Amongst her New Wave contemporaries, such as Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, Varda’s work is often overlooked. This book aims to show the groundbreaking nature of Varda’s early career, to honour her diverse filmography and bring forwards a new level of recognition.
It was important to me that Varda’s attentiveness and appreciation for art was reflected through the physicality of the book. I wanted each aspect to be deeply considered and purposeful. For example, the dimensions of each image are approximately the same as the dimensions of each film’s film stock (usually 35mm), and these images are framed by a cut-out to allow them to be seen and appreciated independently.
Each book is hand bound and the covers are letterpressed.