LACMA celebrates the cinema of legendary filmmaker Agnes Varda

In conjunction with “Agnes Varda in Californialand,” the first U.S. museum showcase of the French filmmaker’s artwork, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting the new film series “The Cinema According to Agnes Varda” next month.

The series kicks off Dec. 6 at the Bing Theatre with 1961’s “Cleo From 5 to 7,” the 85-year-old Varda’s groundbreaking character study, set in real time, about a singer (Corinne Marchand) awaiting the results of a biopsy. Following “Cleo” is a rare showing of her first first film, 1954’s “La Pointe Courte” with Philippe Noiret.

Her 1965 drama, “Le Bonheur,” is on tap for Dec. 7 along with 1969’s “Lions Love (...And Lies),” Varda’s first American feature film, which she shot in Los Angeles while living here with her husband, director Jacques Demy (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”). Andy Warhol icon Viva and “Hair” co-creators James Rado and Gerome Ragni star.

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Sandrine Bonnaire won the Cesar for best actress in Varda’s 1985 “Vagabond,” an unsentimental drama about a young drifter, which screens Dec. 13 along with her 1981 “Documenteur,” which is also set in Los Angeles, about a single mother (Sabine Mamou) and her young son (Varda’s own child, Mathieu Demy).

The series concludes Dec. 14 with the 1987 rarity “Kung Fu Master,” a coming-of-age story with Jane Birkin and Mathieu Demy, and 1991’s “Jacquot de Nantes,” a biographical drama about Varda’s late husband.

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