This annual celebration of international cinema classics and contemporary films is curated and coordinated by local gift shop and bookstore SQecial Media. This year’s festival features three films by French filmmaker Agnès Varda (1928-2019), in the first time the series has focused on a single director. A photographer first, Varda began making films in 1954, having only seen a handful of films herself. Utilizing a fresh perspective and endless experimentation, Varda made many contributions to modern cinema, photography and visual art, while championing feminism and human rights in her work and life.
Her enchanting next-to-last film (released in 2017) finds Varda in documentarian mode, joined by portraitist/muralist/graffiti artist JR. Together they journey through rural France, hearing stories from and creating intimate large format photos of the people they encounter, present and past. The film was awarded the Lili d'or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.