Agnès Varda is receiving a much-deserved Academy Award. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced via press release that the prolific director will be presented with the Honorary Award at this year’s Governors Awards. Also known as an Honorary Oscar, the award celebrates “extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”
Dubbed the “Mother of the French New Wave,” Varda “has experimented with all forms of filmmaking from shorts to documentaries to narrative feature films during her more than 60-year career,” the Academy details. Her first film, 1956’s “La Pointe Courte” is said to have kicked off the New Wave movement and her “Cleo from 5 to 7” is considered a “New Wave classic.” The Belgian filmmaker’s other best-known titles include “Le Bonheur,” “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” “Vagabond,” “Jacquot,” and “The Gleaners and I.”
The short film “Les 3 boutons,” docuseries “Agnes Varda: From Here to There,” and autobiographical doc “The Beaches of Agnès” are among Varda’s more recent credits.
Varda is the first and only woman to receive the Cannes Film Festival’s Honorary Palme d’Or. She took home the prize in 2015. She received the Locarno International Film Festival’s Golden Pard award, its lifetime achievement honor, in 2014. A series of Varda’s work screened at BAMcinématek earlier this year.
“Faces Places,” Varda’s latest project, will screen at TIFF beginning September 13. The doc follows Varda and co-director JR as they make their way through rural France, photographing and interviewing the people they encounter. “Faces Places” took home the Golden Eye (L’Oeil d’Or) prize at Cannes 2017.
The Governors Awards will be held November 11, 2017 in Los Angeles.
