CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 – Colcoa French Film Festival in Hollywood

CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (CLÉO DE 5 À 7)

Friday September 27 – 1:00 pm – Renoir Theater
(+ Short Film Presentation: MY BRANCH SO THIN)
(Screening ends at 2:45 pm)

Directed by: Agnès Varda
Written by: Agnès Varda
Cinematography: Jean Rabier
Film Editing: Janine Verneau
Original Score: Michel Legrand
Produced by: Georges De Beauregard, Carlo Ponti
Cast: Corinne Marchand (Cléo), Antoine Bourseiller (Antoine, the soldier), Dominique Davray (Angèle), Dorothée Blank (Dorothée), Michel Legrand (Bob, the pianist), José Luis De Villalonga (the lover)
International Sales: MK2 Films
U.S. Distributor: Janus Films / Criterion

COLCOA celebrates pioneer filmmaker, the late great Agnès Varda, with this screening of her gorgeous breakout film, Cleo from 5 to 7. The existential story of a young singer struggling with her potential mortality, the film unfolds in “real time” as our heroine wanders through Paris, anxiously awaiting the results of a biopsy. Beyond that simple story, the lushest of black-and-white images emerge from Varda’s quasi-documentary camera and ultra-feminist eye. For Cléo is a woman whose entire existence is defined by her beauty and the male gaze, yet her journey is one of spiritual and emotional awakening. Varda’s feature is as dazzling today as it was back in 1962, at the peak of one of the most exciting junctures in cinema history. The film features cameos by Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina and some of their New Wave cohorts, and this screening is also an homage to the film’s prolific composer, Michel Legrand, who plays Cléo’s jubilant accompanist in the film and who also, sadly, passed away this year. Join us for this heartfelt tribute to a groundbreaking filmmaker… and to cinema itself!

Often referred to as “the mother” of the French New Wave, writer-director Agnès Varda slightly predates and greatly influenced that revolutionary movement, which literally redefined the grammar of cinema. In fact, she is the only female director associated with it. She began her career as a photographer, and wrote and directed her first feature, La Pointe Courte, in 1954, which was followed by Cleo from 5 to 7. She went on to direct some 55 narrative features, documentaries, shorts and TV series, and to become the preeminent female director of her generation. Some of her best known and loved films include One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (1977); Vagabond (1985); Jacquot de Nantes, a portrait of her late husband, filmmaker Jacques Demy (1991); and The Gleaners and I (2000). She is the recipient of countless honors and awards, including an Honorary Cannes Palm d’Or, a Venice Golden Lion, and two César Awards for Best Documentary. In 2017, she was both the first female director to receive an Honorary Oscar, and the oldest person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, for her documentary and final feature, Faces Places, an endearing road movie with the artist JR. Agnès Varda left this world on March 29, 2019, at the age of 90.

Presented in association with:

Janus Films

WIF (Women In Films)