Faces Places (Visages Villages)
JR, Agnès Varda
France
89 minutes
In French with English subtitles

Presented by the Wooly Pub

 

Synopsis

Agnès Varda and JR have things in common: a passion for and the exploration of images in general, and more precisely, for places and for ways of showing, sharing, and exhibiting them. Agnès chose cinema. JR chose to create open air photography galleries. When Agnès and JR met in 2015, they immediately wanted to work together, to shoot a film in France, far from cities, during a trip in JR's photographic (and magical) truck. Through chance encounters and prepared projects, they reached out to others, listening to them, photographing them, and sometimes putting them on posters. This film also tells the story of Agnès and JR's friendship, which grew stronger throughout the film shoot, between surprises and teasing, and while laughing about their differences.

About the Directors

Agnès Vardais a Belgian-born film director who has spent most of her working life in France. Her films, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary with a distinct experimental style.

JRis a muralist who creates "Pervasive Art" that spreads uninvited on the buildings of the slums around Paris, on the walls in the Middle-East, on the broken bridges in Africa or the favelas in Brazil. People who often live with the bare minimum discover something absolutely unnecessary. And they don't just see it, they make it. Some elderly women become models for a day; some kids turn artists for a week. In that Art scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators.

As he remains anonymous and doesn’t explain his huge full-frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter. That is what JR's work is about, raising questions...

Post Film Discussions:

Local artist Gregory Denton will lead a post-film discussion.