Thanks to my friends at IHeartFemaleDirectors.com for sharing in my adoration for the goddess-mother of new wave cinema, the one-and-only Agnes Varda! Their mission, to provide, “good old-fashioned gushy fandom” on some of the best directors out there, who just happen to be women. Paired with lovely artwork by Brooklyn-based Illustrator & Designer Danie Drankwalter, my letter espouses in as many words as possible my love for the woman who reminded me why I make movies.

Varda, known for her vérité narratives and insightful documentaries on life, humanity and art, began making movies in 1955. Over a 62 year career she has steadily released work, including the brand new documentary Faces, Places (Visages, Villages), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. See it this weekend at your local Laemmle art house theater.

Richard Bordy with The New Yorker describes Faces, Places as capturing, “heroism of daily life, the recognition of the daily labor and struggles of factory workers, farmers, waitresses, and, for that matter, women over all whose private roles in sustaining the public lives of their male partners go largely uncommemorated.” He goes on to designate Varda as, “an iconographer, whose stories and explorations, recollections and encounters, are magnified into images that are, in effect, devotional.” I whole hardheartedly agree, and also add in my letter that her work leaves me feeling, “connected to the womb of my inheritance as a filmmaker.” Check out the full letter over at at IHeartFemaleDirectors.com.