Notes on Being: Exploring Identity at the Images Festival

The annual Images Festival begins this week in Toronto, and we are very excited to be co-presenting the program Notes on Being. Featuring works by Onyeka Igwe, Cauleen Smith, Basma Alsharif, Chantal Akerman, Abigail Child, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Kevin Jerome Everson and Christopher Harris, the selection is—in the words of programmer […]

An Interview with Black Gold Programmer Sarah-Tai Black

Sarah-Tai Black is a programmer and arts writer based in Toronto. Since 2017, she has curated Black Gold — a monthly screening series at The Royal Cinema dedicated to celebrating black screen icons and filmmakers. On March 7th, to celebrate its second anniversary, Black Gold will be screening a rare 35mm print of Claire Denis’ little-seen […]

Editors’ Note: Varda

With five years of cléo under our belts, it seemed only right to take this issue back to our roots, our namesake, and the reason we started this journey at all: Agnès Varda. Our founding editor, Kiva Reardon, discovered Varda in a third-year film class, and the rest is herstory; as the most prominent woman […]

Beyond the Photo Album: Relocating Varda’s Salut les Cubains

The English-language critical response to Agnès Varda’s Salut les Cubains, a 1963 photo-montage documentary short exploring post-revolution Cuba, has largely positioned the film as a historical stepping stone on the concurrent paths of Varda’s political engagement and filmic preoccupation with still photography. These discussions often take as their jumping-off-point Salut les Cubains’ inclusion in Cinévardaphoto […]