7:00 - DAGUERRÉOTYPES
Agnès Varda (1975) 80 mins G

Constructed with true passion & care, Varda’s deeply humanistic social documentary records the milieu of Parisians living & trading between 70 & 90 Rue Daguerre where the filmmaker herself resides. Varda’s skill & tactfulness elicit the candid response of the butcher, the baker, the couple who run the perfumery & other dwellers who seek to continue their daily routines in the face of urban change.

Preceded by

L’opéra-mouffe
Agnès Varda (1958) 17 mins
Personal & affectionate portrait of the Parisian market & slum area known as “la mouffe”.
Print courtesy of NFSA.

8:50 - BRIGHT LEAVES
Ross McElwee (2003) 107 mins

This typically quixotic & idiosyncratic personal documentary “about” North Carolina tobacco explores the relationship between this now demonised industry & the director’s somewhat fraught family history. In equal parts home movie, essay film & investigative documentary, this extremely entertaining but critically probing movie incorporates a wide array of materials including interviews with Patricia Neal, co-star of Bright Leaf, a 1950 Hollywood biopic reputedly based on the life of McElwee’s great-grandfather, unhinged film theorist Vlada Petric, & the director’s movie-mad cousin.