One of the leading lights of the Nouvelle Vague, director Agnès Varda once famously mused, “If you open people, you’ll find landscapes. If you open me, you’ll find beaches.” In this inventive, autobiographical, and eloquent memoir that coincides with her 80th birthday, Varda uses this framing device to explore her life as a child, an artist, a lover, and a mother. She remembers her childhood holiday trips to the seaside, and the family’s wartime exile to the fishing village of Sète, as carefree and sunny. Varda set her remarkable first feature La Pointe courte (1954) in Sète, and in one of Beaches’ loveliest moments, Varda stages a scene from her debut film involving two young boys. She tracks down the boys—now old men—who re-enact the scene while the original film is projected onto a makeshift screen. And Varda knew Tout le monde—from her compatriots in the French New Wave (including her husband Jacques Demy) to the Black Panthers in California. Weaving together photographs, vintage footage, and present-day sequences, Varda proves that her creative powers are undimmed with this fascinating portrait of a life lived to the fullest.

(SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)