HYDE PARK — The director film historians call the “grandmother of French new wave” will get a special festival in Hyde Park, and Agnès Varde herself will attend many of the screenings.
On Oct. 8, Varda, one of the leading voices of the New Wave film movement that mixed together the role of director, screenwriter and cinematographer to create films about contemporary social issues in France during the 1960s, will start a weeklong residency.
“I love Varda’s poetic wit and intelligence, and the way she anchors the conceptual in the sensual,” said Dominique Bluher, a lecturer in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies and one of the organizers of the visit. “She is also unafraid of transformation: as she likes to put it, ‘I am an old filmmaker who has become a young visual artist.’”
The 87-year-old Varda will join a 5 p.m. reception on Oct. 9 Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St.
A full week of films is scheduled at the Logan, and Varda will attend screenings of “Happiness,” “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t” and “The Beaches of Agnes.”
Screenings are also scheduled at the Music Box Theater, 3733 N. Southport Ave., and the Black Cinema House, 7200 S. Kimbark Ave. A full schedule is available on the university’s website.
Many of the screenings are free and Varda’s most recent work will also be on display at the Logan Center.
“Photographs Get Moving (potatoes and shells, too),” a collection of photographs and video installations, will be on display from Sept. 11 to Nov. 8 at the Logan Center.
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