Such is her impact on the cultural landscape – New Wave poster girl, style icon – she makes for a pretty intimidating figure to meet. But all nerves are put aside as soon as she greets me warmly with a big dazzling smile, takes my arm, and suggests we move out of the BFI screening room where we are supposed to have our chat and go and have some wine in the bar instead.Karina still cuts a glamorous figure. Wearing a wide-brimmed fedora and thick cashmere scarf, time has done nothing to reduce the sharpness of her cheekbones or the sparkle in her eyes.After she orders us a bottle of rosé and some cheese (you can take the girl out of France…), I ask Karina what it was like to have appeared in such celebrated and important films.“It’s funny because a long time ago when Jean-Luc did the films, a lot of people didn’t like them at the time because they were so different. But as time passed, they started to love them,” she says in her heavily-accented, deep, throaty voice. “Now, I get the Eurostar to come here to London and I go through security and they say, ‘You’re Anna Karina!’ 'But how do they know me?,' I think. It’s wonderful to see young people today like the films; I think it’s great.”She bats away any suggestion that she is an important figure in cinema, and is spectacularly modest about her achievements, which include acting awards, writing novels, directing, setting up her own (now defunct) production company, and singing on Serge Gainsbourg-penned hits such as “ Sous le Soleil Exactement ” and “ Roller Girl ”. Having last acted in 2008, she is mostly retired now.