film screening | “Faces Places”

GDD and Against Gravity cordially invite you to the online film screenings of the Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival repertoire. Documentary film screenings are a response to the slogan of this year's GDD "Solidarity" and will attempt to look at the future in the age of new reality.

Faces Places (2017), directed by Agnés Varda, JR, France, 89 min

Agnès Varda, French photographer and film director, representative of the French New Wave, winner of an honorary Oscar® for lifetime achievement and an honorary César award, and the well-known French photographer, street artist and graffiti artist hiding under the initials JR. She is almost 90 years old, he is 33. She has worked with Jean-Luc Godard, he creates gigantic murals in various locations around the world. What they have in common is a love of images, and especially a questioning of the way they are shown. Varda chose cinema, JR creating photographic galleries outdoors. They met in 2015 and immediately decided to make a film in France, away from the big cities.

They traveled in an old van converted into a giant moving camera, inside of which was a photo booth, as well as equipment that allowed them to develop the photos they took and print them in large format. In this way, a documentary road movie was created – a portrait of the slowly disappearing French periphery, far from the hustle and bustle of the city, which as a result of technological development has become a deep province. Today, no one needs coal in France, but people still live near the mines and post-industrial architecture can be found there.

Varda and JR visit small communities, villages and farms from Aubin to Bonnieux and Pirou-Plage, discovering that each person has a different, but equally interesting, story to tell. They record, among other things, the stories of the last resident from the ranks of mining shacks about to be destroyed, a lone farmer, or a letter carrier who is inextricably linked to the local community. Each encounter becomes an inspiration to create a large-format photograph of the local community and the individual. The photographs, which are created before the eyes of the viewers of the film, are a resultant of place, time and someone's individual story. The images that emerge as a result of this highly interesting film experiment can be beautiful, touching, funny, but also disturbing. And while there is no mention of politics in this film, the film's message is deeply political.

This film celebration of life and the pleasure of meeting others is also a documentation of the mutual friendship between two artistically and mentally close personalities who may be generations apart, but share similar views and attitudes to life. This film is also a joyful celebration of the pure need to create art. 

Film in French with Polish subtitles. Available only in Poland.  

Each day a code will be published that will entitle to a free viewing of the film between 19:00 and 00:00.

Trailer:

kod: TWARZEPLAZE_GDD21 

Partner: 

Materials:

• Terms and conditions