Nausicaa (1971)
By Agnès Varda
Agnès Varda wrote the script of this semi-autobiographical love story, a reaction to the military putsch in Greece, in 1967. After receiving approval to shoot the film for French television in 1970, her elements were confiscated, her postproduction lab was broken into, and the entire film was eventually seized and suppressed. Varda never received a formal explanation from the government. The Royal Belgian Cinematheque preserved the sole existing workprint of the film, which is presented here. Agnes Varda’s Nausicaa (1970) is one of the late great director’s lesser-known films. Not because it is a lesser Varda, but because it was commissioned by French public television, only to not get aired and even destroyed. Varda was never told why, but her guess is that it was suppressed for political reasons, having to do with the subject of the film, Greek exiles in France and the Greek Regime of the Colonels, a military regime ruling the country from 1967 to 1974. Though why French public television or the French government would want to silence Nausicaa remains unclear. Nausicaa’s only public screening occurred when a workprint was shown in Belgium. Luckily, this workprint was saved in…
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