Film Screening: Cinémélodie—L'Une chante, l'autre pas (One Sings, the Other Doesn't)

Join us for the next installment in our Cinémélodie series, a screening of Franco-Belgian filmmaker Agnès Varda’s 1977 drama** L’Une chante, l’autre pas** (One Sings, the Other Doesn’t). 

In 1962 Paris, 17-year-old Pauline wanders into a gallery where she recognizes her old friend, Suzanne, in one of the photographs displayed. As she reconnects with Suzanne, Pauline learns that Suzanne has two children and is expecting a third she cannot afford. In an effort to secure Suzanne money for an abortion, Pauline leaves home, drops out of school, and starts working as a singer, while Suzanne moves back to her parents’ farm. Ten years later, they reunite during the women’s movements in 1970s France. 

This poignant story of female friendship between 1962 and 1976 allows for a chronicle of feminism and women’s rights.

Guests will enjoy a complimentary glass of Louis Jadot Bourgogne and a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to the Sofitel Magnificent Mile’s très chic Le Bar.

Doors at 6:00 PM for a complimentary glass of wine. Program at 6:30. Please enter via 54 W Chicago Ave. Non-alcoholic options will be available.

About the Director

Image: Martin Kraft (photo.martinkraft.com); License: CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Agnès Varda (born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928–29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer.

Varda’s work employed location shooting in an era when the limitations of sound technology made it easier and more common to film indoors, with constructed sets and painted backdrops of landscapes, rather than outdoors, on location. Her use of non-professional actors was also unconventional for 1950s French cinema. Varda’s feature film debut was La Pointe Courte (1955), followed by Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985), and Kung Fu Master (1988). Varda was also known for her work as a documentarian with such works as Black Panthers (1968), The Gleaners and I (2000), The Beaches of Agnès (2008), Faces Places (2017), and her final film, Varda by Agnès (2019).

Among several other accolades, Varda received an Honorary Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first female director to win the award; a Golden Lion for Vagabond at the 1985 Venice Film Festival; an Academy Honorary Award; and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Faces Places, becoming the oldest person to be nominated for a competitive Oscar. In 2017, she became the first female director to win an honorary Oscar.

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