Agnès Varda, influential French New Wave filmmaker, dies at 90
French director Agnès Varda has died at 90.
Varda, who has been called the mother of the French New Wave, died in her home on Friday following a battle with breast cancer, The New York Times reports.
Born in 1928, Varda made her directorial debut with 1955's La Pointe Courte, which Criterion points out was a particularly impressive first feature considering she says she had seen very few films prior to making it. Some of Varda's subsequent work includes Cleo From 5 to 7 and The Gleaners and I, the latter of which was voted the eighth greatest documentary of all time in Sight & Sound, notes The Hollywood Reporter.
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In 2017, Varda received an Honorary Oscar and at the 2018 Academy Awards became the oldest person nominated for a competitive award with her documentary Faces Places, per ABC News. When she couldn't attend the Oscar nominee luncheon that year, she sent a cardboard cutout of herself instead.
Tributes poured in for Varda on Friday, with the official Twitter account for the Cannes Film Festival saying that "the place she occupied is irreplaceable. Agnès loved images, words and people. She’s one of those whose youth will never fade."
