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Director Agnes Varda and photographer/muralist J.R. journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.
Director: Agnés Varda & JR
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Participate in JR’s international Inside Out Project, which encourages people “to share their untold stories and transform messages of personal identity into works of public art.”
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Support organizations like the National Endowment For The Arts, which help provide capital and promotional support to documentary productions and much more creative endeavors.
“In ‘Faces Places,’ Varda’s work with JR becomes, in its own way, iconic of itself—his murals are transformed, here, into symbols of her own artistic passion.”
Explore more on The New Yorker.
Varda has experimented with all forms of filmmaking from shorts to documentaries to narrative feature films during her more than 60-year career.
Learn about the journey of the mother of the French New Wave from The Academy.
“Once on the road, we find the destination doesn’t matter nearly as much as the journey itself. In a sense, road trips are a metaphor for life: They’re arbitrary and wondrous expeditions that don’t always have a clear beginning or ending.”
Continue reading on Elite Daily
Varda and JR discuss the ins and outs of collaboration when their work ethics seemingly clash, the personalities they present on screen, and the “work” of their images.
Listen on The Cinephiliacs.
“Varda herself collects a bunch of heart-shaped potatoes and leaves them on a shelf to rot. She compares herself to the decaying vegetables and introduces the themes of death, decay and her own demise. She gathers images on her DV camera of her own hand, skin and greying hair and talks about the march of time. “I’m getting old, the end is near” she says.”
Explore the extensive article from Senses of Cinema.
“Children in poverty, rape in the military, mass murderers at large … Oscar-nominated director Lucy Walker picks 10 powerful documentaries to galvanise you into action.”
Continue reading on The Guardian.
The two brilliant, colorful and irrepressible filmmakers sit down in a New York City gallery to discuss memory, time and artistic boundaries.
Listen to the episode from The Talkhouse Film Podcast.
“[Varga’s] images, both moving and static, exemplify an attention to a subject’s social function, continuing to dignify faces with frankness and humility.”
Continue exploring on Reverse Shot.
“I don’t only want to do work in the favela — I want to create bridges. That’s the main goal in a city like Rio, where there’s such a concentration of people, and also a separation of people.”
Explore more on The New York Times.
"FACES PLACES is unforgettable, not because of dramatic moments or arresting images, but because once you have seen it you want to keep it with you, like a talisman or a souvenir. Wherever you’re going, it will surely come in handy."
The New York Times, A.O. Scott
"From the opening-credit animation onward, this delightful, digressive, breezy collaboration, staged to look more spontaneous than it possibly could be, celebrates and enhances both artists, repeatedly finding the extraordinary in the ordinary and growing more reflective and melancholy only in its Swiss epilogue."
Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum
