To accompany the two week revival playing at New York’s Quad Cinema (Wild Things: The Ferocious Films of Nelly Kaplan, April 12-25, 2019), Film Quarterly contributing editor Joan Dupont filmed a short interview with the Argentine emigré director Nelly Kaplan. Video recorded and edited by Manuel David.
In this wide-ranging yet intimate interview, the iconic French filmmaker Agnès Varda reflects on her career over tea with Film Quarterly contributing editor Joan Dupont. Varda discusses the themes of feminism and freedom that unite her films, from Le bonheur (1965) to Vagabond (1985) along with her enduring interest in sharing the stories of others, as she did most recently in collaboration with the visual artist JR in Faces Places (2017). Over the course of several conversations, Varda shares insights into her methods and obsessions, her enduring vision and constant reinventions.
Critic Joan Dupont went in search of filmmaker Nelly Kaplan, whom she had met at an awards ceremony in Paris over a decade ago. She was famous for one film, La Fiancée du Pirate (A Very Curious Girl, 1969), which had taken France and the international world of women’s film festivals by storm. She had slipped out of sight; nobody seemed to know where she was or why. At the Cinémathèque Française, there was only a kind of embarrassment when her name was mentioned and no plan to show her films. This past year has seen a resurgence of interest in the work of Kaplan, and the restoration and rerelease of some of her work by Lobster Films. Dupont met with Kaplan at her Paris apartment to discuss past, present, and future.
FEATURES: Cinema’s Sex Acts; Ten Thousand Waves; Male Beauty and the Erotics of Intimacy; Under the Skin; plus Festival Reports, Page Views, and more…