Thirty years after its original release, Vagabond (Sans toit ni loi) was brought to the Brighton Festival for a fresh look at this still extraordinary film by Agnes Varda.

A 17-year-old Sandrine Bonnaire played Mona, an unknown drifter bumming around the bitterly-cold French countryside, with only roll-ups, pop music and strangers to keep her company.

The breezy protagonist put up with all sorts of unwanted attention on account as a young woman alone, and her life was unravelled through a series of encounters with strangers on the road.

We never really learned about the real Mona, whose transience made her vulnerable to predators – as well as well-meaning friends who inevitably cut her loose. Instead she was reflected in reactions to her – the young maid who envied her freedom, the goat herder who chided her laziness and the professor fascinated yet patronising of her.

Despite insisting the road was the life she wanted, it was harsh and created cracks in her tough exterior each time she was forced to move on.

The desperately moving film was introduced by director Carol Morley, whose Dreams Of A Life is being screened on Monday, May 11, at 6.30pm, a film telling a similar story of a woman on the fringes, forgotten if not for the documentary effort to save her.

Five stars