Agnès Varda for Writers
6 Weeks, asynchronous, August 30-October 4, 2026
Tuition: $455*
If your memoir refuses to sit still in one genre or your fiction script keeps veering toward your lived experience, you already owe Agnès Varda something. Over the course of her 65-year career, the longest of any female filmmaker, queer icon Varda (1928-2019) wrote and directed some of the most acclaimed films of her era, from her tour de force Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), a classic of modernist cinema, to the beloved documentary The Gleaners and I (2000) four decades later. She helped to define the French New Wave, inspired an entire generation of filmmakers, and was recognized with major awards at the Cannes, Berlin, and Venice Film Festivals, as well as an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards.
This six week intensive workshop explores what Varda’s films, viewed over the course of her prolific career, can specifically open up for writers. Before we had the term ‘speculative memoir” or even widely used the term “autofiction,” Varda made experimental films that complicated and defied easy distinctions between narrative (fiction) and documentary (nonfiction), between character and setting, and between the subject that sees and the object that is seen. With special attention to character development, landscapes, plotting, and unapologetic hybridity, each week will include viewing one film, writing to a prompt created for that film, and a one-hour optional Zoom meeting, Sundays, at 11 am PST. Zoom meetings will be recorded for those who can’t attend.
*Please note: Students will be asked to join Criterion Collection streaming service for 1-2 months in order to view films.
Space is limited, so please sign up early. Venmo your tuition of $455 (along with your email address) @Ariel-Gore-1
If you’d prefer to split your payment, you can reserve your spot with a $200 deposit. Email arielfiona at gmail if you’d prefer to pay via Zelle, check, or another way.
Ariel Gore is a Lambda Award-winning editor and author of more than a dozen books of fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid work. Her first memoir, Atlas of the Human Heart, was inspired by Varda’s Vagabond.
Megan Moodie is a longtime Wayward Writer and Professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, where she is also affiliated faculty in Film and Digital Media. Her speculative memoir and autotheoretical essays have appeared in venues like Chicago Quarterly Review, Catamaran, Hip Mama, and MUTHA Magazine. You can also read her film criticism in Film Quarterly and the Los Angeles Review of Books. More info at https://meganmoodie.github.io and https://campusdirectory.ucsc.edu/cd_detail?uid=mmoodie.
