Nicknamed “The ancestor of the New Wave” when she was in her early thirties, Agnès Varda, photographer, artist and filmmaker, turned 80 in 2008 and now really lives up to her nickname! Her latest film is an innovative and whimsical journey through her own life and work retracing a part of France's cultural history.

Les Plages d’Agnès is a remarkable example of what Varda calls “subjective documentary”. We follow young, then not so young, Agnès from her beginning as a young photography student to the celebrated woman that she is today; from her first film - already revealing her trademark experimental style - to her recent art exhibition at the Cartier Foundation in Paris; from a long career in France to a brief one in Hollywood; from her personal joys and sorrows to her professional pleasures and hardships, many times intricately mixed.

Her film is full of laughter and tears, and when Varda starts talking about her famous and dear friends who are no more (Jean Vilar, Gérard Philipe, and, of course, Jacques “Jacquot” Demy, to name only a few) the emotion is overwhelming. The film ends with her friends improvising a birthday party and bringing her 80 brooms (in France the expression “80 balais”, literally “80 brooms”, means 80 years old). The self-portrait of a free and curious woman!

Returning to the beaches that have been part of her life, Varda stages herself among excerpts of her films, images and reportages. She shares with humor and emotion her beginnings as stage photographer, then as early filmmaker of the French New Wave, her life with Jacques Demy, her feminism, her trips to Cuba, China, and the USA, her life as independent producer and her family life.

Les Plages d’Agnès won the Cesar for Best Documentary in 2009.

Shown with Nous (Us) by Olivier Hems