Short film program „In the Hood – Of People and Places“

Varda’s aesthetic always proceeds from her personal interest in people, places and their stories. The connection between two of her early short films and those of her contemporaries in terms of their thematic overlaps reveal the specificity of Varda’s universe: ORCHARD STREET (USA 1955/2014) by Ken Jacobs is a portrait of the shopping street of the same name at the heart of the Jewish quarter on New York’s Lower East Side. On the other side of the Atlantic, Varda’s L’OPÉRA-MOUFFE (France 1958) shows a similar hustle and bustle at the market in the Paris quarter as a subjective document. Margaret Tait observes her grandmother at home on the remote Scottish Orkney island: A PORTRAIT OF GA (UK 1952). Varda travels to San Francisco in order to film her ONCLE YANCO (France/USA 1967) in exuberant colors and to ponder her own family history.