Faces Places

The famous French film director Agnès Varda and well-known French photographer, street artist and graffiti artist known only by the initials JR. She's 90 years old, he's 34. She worked with Godard, he creates giant murals in various places around the world. They share their love of imagery and, in particular, they love to question the way in which images are shown. Varda chose cinema, JR open-air photo galleries. They met in 2015 and decided to make a film in France, far from any big cities. They took a trip in an old converted van with a photo booth in the middle, as well as equipment to develop and print large-format photos. This is how their documentary road movie came to be: a portrait of slowly dying French villages that, as a result of technological development, have become profoundly provincial. In France today, coal is no longer needed, but people still live near mines. Varda and JR visit small communities, villages and farms from Aubin to Bonnieux and Pirou-Plage, discovering that everyone has a unique but equally interesting story to tell.