In the Footsteps of A.Varda: A Stormy Evening in La Pointe Courte

I spent the evening in La Pointe Courte, the district in Sète where Agnès Varda filmed her first feature, and something about the experience caught me off guard.

The weather had turned. The sky was heavy, the wind shifting. It wasn’t dramatic in the usual sense, but everything felt charged. Boats were docked in crooked angles, as if caught mid-scene. Fishing nets lay tangled on the ground, stretched over wooden frames and low fences, more sculpture than storage. The place wasn’t polished. It was messy, raw, alive, and utterly cinematic.

In the narrow alleyways, people were cooking, chatting, watching TV. Doors left open. A blur of daily life unfolding against the backdrop of a brewing storm. It felt like walking through a frame Varda might have composed, the kind where life just is, without needing to explain itself.

There was no real monument. Just presence. Just stories. I left with my head full of images, and a strong sense of what cinema rooted in reality can still feel like.