TO MARCH 24

Now established as the kindly, eccentric grandmother of the French New Wave, Agnès Varda (pictured) regularly receives letters and gifts, often rendered in the trash-into-gold bricolage she extols in her charming 2001 documentary, The Gleaners and I (at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 12, at the National Gallery of Art). She was moved to update that ode to creative recycling and its impact in the equally engaging Gleaners Two Years Later, which will be shown with the earlier film. For years, however, Varda was best known for such harsher fare as 1964’s Happiness (at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 24, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts) and 1985’s Vagabond (at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, at the NMWA). The former is an ironically pastel-hued tale of a perfect family that’s about to unravel; the latter tracks a rebellious teenager who spends the final weeks of her life wandering through a hostile world. Another thread in Varda’s work is her love for her late husband, director Jacques Démy, expressed in such films as Jacquot de Nantes (at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 18, at the NMWA), which Varda is scheduled to introduce in person. Also included in this retrospective is her first feature, 1954’s La Pointe Courte (at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 3, at the NMWA), which contrasts tales of love and poverty; Daguerréotypes (at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 12, at the NGA), a 1975 portrait of the Montparnasse street where she lived; and her most recent film, Cinévardaphoto (at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 6, at the NGA), a triptych of cinematic essays. Films screen through Thursday, March 24 (see Showtimes for a full schedule), at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium, 4th Street and Constitution Ave. NW, free, (202) 842-6799, and at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW, $6, (202) 783-5000. (Mark Jenkins)