This first publication dedicated to Agnès Varda’s photographic work features her series made in Cuba in 1963, just two months after the missile crisis. Fascinated by the island and its energy, a particular mix of pure socialism and cha-cha-cha, Agnès Varda brings back thousands of photographs. In order to preserve her freedom of movement, she traded film for still photography, with the idea of subsequently filming and reanimating her photographs with a rostrum camera.

With this series, the artist creates a tension betwen stills and animated images, or photography and cinema, that lies at the heart of her work.

This book also includes archives of the film editing pages as well as an interview and three essays that focus on recontextualising the artist’s work within the period (François Hourmant), decoding the connections between photography and cinema (Valérie Vignaux and Karolina Lewandowska), and providing a perspective on her overall body of work (Clément Chéroux).