Dec. 13 (UPI) — Google is celebrating Agnès Varda with a Doodle on the anniversary of the day in 2014 that the European Film Academy gave her an honorary Lifetime Achievement Award for her work.
Varda was a photographer and film director, credited with pioneering the New Wave movement.
Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1928, Varda’s family moved to Sète, France when she was 12 years old. She took photography and art classes through school. Her first job was shooting photos for Théâtre National Populaire.
She soon turned to filmmaking and shot her first film, La Pointe Courte, in 1955. As a self-taught director, she developed her own style and would experiment with her technique. Varda, who directed over 40 films, was credited with ushering in the French New Wave movement.
A feminist, a lot of her films focused on the stories of women. She called her 1977 film, L’Une chante, l’autre pas, a “feminist musical.”
Throughout her career, she continued experimenting with new styles. She worked with video installations in the early 2000s and her work has been displayed all over the world.
Varda was given several awards throughout her life, including an Oscar nomination for Visages Villages (Faces Places).
Varda died at the age of 90 in 2019 from complications of breast cancer.
