Agnès Wildenstein

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No series allowed, but if I had to stay on an island alone, I would bring with me: Histoire(s) du Cinéma by Jean-Luc Godard, La Maison des Bois by Maurice Pialat, Berlin Alexanderplatz by R.W. Fassbinder and Twin Peaks Season 2 by David Lynch. But I would also bring Sans Soleil by Chris Marker and La terra trema by Visconti.

Thank you for inviting me this year, but I know you did it only because I am a woman and you needed to fill quotas.

This poll is very English-language and European cinema-centred. I tried to make a list of my favourite films by country, to be fair, including Egypt, India, Brazil and Portugal, where I live, because it is the country of João César Monteiro, Manoel de Oliveira, Paulo Rocha, Pedro Costa, Teresa Villaverde, Rita Azevedo Gomes, Miguel Gomes and João Pedro Rodrigues. But my list was too long, of course ,so I decided to be as stupid as this poll is and to put only French-language films that are very important to me.

Of course, there are many more and among them some classics, like Johnny Guitar by Nicholas Ray, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc by Dreyer, Loulou by Pabst, The Blue Angel by Sternberg or L'Atalante by Jean Vigo… Also we should also not forget Earth by Dovzhenko, a Ukrainian director. As a programmer, what is important to me is to share films with people, and in the chaotic times we are living it is more essential than ever. I recently read an amazing book, Le Cinéma que je fais by Marguerite Duras, which is why, rewatching her films, I realized how good they are. We should show them more. Thank you.