Network Agnès Varda

29th International Bremen Film Conference – 7 to 10 May 2025

Agnès Varda (1928–2019) was not only highly creative but also very productive: her extensive oeuvre comprises film, photography and installation art, spanning more than six decades during which she continued to reinvent herself. During her career, she acted as a trailblazer of modern film by adding her own experimental twist to the creative vocabulary of the language of cinema, situating her work somewhere between the realism of documentaries and the fictionality of film poems. From about 2000, she discovered her passion for small digital cameras and – already in her 70s – embarked on a third career as an installation artist.

Network:
The notion of the network arises somewhat organically from Varda’s oeuvre, which is characterized by cooperation and relationality with others. “Network Agnès Varda” aims to look beyond the author and her work, to instead focus on the social fabric surrounding Varda, and the (historical) discourses and practices in which she was embedded. “Network Agnès Varda” thus specifically interrogates the correlations between her oeuvre and the work of others.

Essayisms:
Varda’s unique approach – her cinécriture, or “cine-writing” – is concerned with collecting and reflecting themes, images and stories. Associations, coincidences and detours are therefore much more characteristic of her films than conclusive screenplays.

Modernisms:
Varda was one of the first directors in Europe to translate modernist stylistic devices taken from art and literature onto the silver screen. The aim of her films is not identification; instead, they maintain somewhat of a distance, shatter illusions, and offer a glimpse behind the scenes. Many draw attention to their own artificiality.

Feminisms:
Since her international breakthrough hit CLÉO DE 5 À 7 (1961), in which the protagonist emancipates herself from being a passive object of the male gaze to becoming an actively observing flâneuse (Mouton, 2000), Varda has evidently combined her modernist affinities with a feminist perspective. With her fondness for modernism, she tells stories of female solidarity and links these with activist discourses around bodily self-determination and reflections on gender performativity.

The entire event (talks, films and the dialogue “Learning from Varda”) will take place on site in presence. Accreditation for specialist audiences on request. Access to the lectures is free of charge. Abstracts and information on the speakers can be found here.

6 pm // Opening

6.30 pm // Unterschwelliges Sehen im Zwischenraum der Künste
Opening lecture by Christa Blümlinger (Paris)
| Talk in German language

8 pm // THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS
Les plages d‘Agnès; d: Agnès Varda, F 2008, 110min, OV with German subtitles
| Introduction by Birgit Kohler (Berlin)

9.30 am // Resteverwertung im Kino Agnès Vardas
Linda Waack (Zurich)
| Talk in German language

10.30 am // Gesten des Spiels: Agnès Varda und Autor*innenschaft
Bettina Henzler (Cologne)
| Talk in German language

11.30 am // Vardas Wertabspaltungskritik im westdeutschen Fernsehen
Dennis Göttel (Berlin)
| Talk in German language

– Break –

2 pm // Varda’s Mode of Production: Contextualizing Feminist Filmmaking in 1980s France
Kelley Conway (Madison)

3 pm // VAGABOND
Sans toit ni loi; d: Agnès Varda, F 1985, 105min, OV with English subtitles
| Introduction by Birgit Kohler (Berlin)

5.30 pm // In Dialogue: Learning from Varda – Film Production as Manufacture
| With Eva Knopf (Bremen), Dennis Göttel (Berlin), moderated by Birgit Kohler (Berlin)
| Discussion round in German language

8.30 pm // In the Hood – Of People and Places
| Short film programme curated and presented by Christine Rüffert (Bremen)

9.30 pm // Das Ewig-Weibliche: Eine bildliche Umkehrung in Agnès Vardas CLÉO DE 5 À 7 (1961)
Sahar Daryab (Bamberg)
| Talk in German language

10.30 am // Agnès’ Autoportraits
Friederike Horstmann (Berlin)
| Talk in German language

11.30 am // Imagining Ageing with Agnès Varda: Feminist Perspectives on Late Life and Care
Shirley Jordan (Newcastle)

– Break –

2 pm // Negotiating Motherhood
Colleen Kennedy-Karpat (Ankara)

3 pm // CLÉO FROM 5 TO 7
Cléo de 5 à 7; d: Agnès Varda, F/I 1961, 90min, OV with English subtitles
| Introduction by Birgit Kohler (Berlin)

5 pm // Zwischen strukturierender Funktion und Erinnerungsarbeit: Zum Einsatz der Musik in den Filmen Agnès Vardas
Stefan Drees (Berlin)
| Talk in German language

– Break –

7.30 pm // PEOPLE ON SUNDAY
Menschen am Sonntag; d: Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer, D 1930, 74min, German intertitles with English subtitles
| Live music by Eunice Martins (Berlin)
| Introduction by Winfried Pauleit (Bremen)

9.15 pm // Double Feature
SALUT LES CUBAINS
d: Agnès Varda; F 1963, 29min, OV with English subtitles
CEREAL / Soy Claudia, soy Esther y soy Teresa. Soy Ingrid, soy Fabiola y soy Valeria.
d: Anna Spanlang, A 2022, 35min, OV with English subtitles
| Introduction by Birgit Kohler (Berlin)

9.30 am // Belebende Rhythmisierung. Agnès Vardas Photofilm SALUT LES CUBAINS im Verhältnis zu Alain Resnais und Chris Marker
Lars Nowak (Erlangen-Nuremberg)
| Talk in German language

10.30 am // SALUT LES CUBAINS (1963). Agnès Varda in Kuba. Drei Wochen Revolution in der Karibik
Marta Muñoz-Aunión (Frankfurt)
| Talk in German language

11.30 am // La vie pour l’art oder l’art pour la vie? Die filmische Gestaltung als Lebensprinzip
Mathias Barkhausen (Berlin)
| Talk in German language

– Break –

2 pm // Interviews mit Interviewer/innen. Zur Reflexivität einer dokumentarischen Form bei Varda und Pasolini
Bernhard Groß (Jena)
| Talk in German language

3 pm // DOCUMENTEUR
d: Agnès Varda; F/USA 1981, 65min, OV with English subtitles
| Introduction (tba)

The International Bremen Film Conference is addressing the film-interested cinema audience and industry professionals with its close interlinking of public lectures, film screenings and film q+a‘s. It is a long-standing cooperation between CITY 46 / Kommunalkino Bremen e.V. and the Bremen Universitys work group Film Studies, Dep. 9 – Cultural Studies / ZeMKI, and it is funded by nordmedia - Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/ Bremen mbH and the DFG. For the 29th edition, the Bremen Film Conference is cooperating with the Berlin Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art e.V. as part of the traveling project Arsenal on Location.

May 7–10, 2025
CITY 46 | Kommunalkino Bremen

Brochure (tbc)

Project coordination:

Nils Gloistein // Universität Bremen
Christine Rüffert // Universität Bremen

Registration:

Tobias Dietrich // CITY 46

Further information:

Abstracts (tbc)
Film programme (tbc)

Updated by: Ania Mohammadi

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