Chantal Akerman

  • Chantal Akerman – Histoires d’Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy (1989)

    1981-1990BelgiumChantal AkermanDrama

    Chantal Akerman explores Jewish American identity in this multilayered portrait of the immigrant experience. Shot in Brooklyn near the Williamsburg Bridge, Histoires d’Amérique takes the form of a series of first-person addresses delivered by a cross-section of Jewish New Yorkers (including Living Theatre cofounder Judith Malina), whose by turns tragic and humorous tales speak to a collective history of trauma, displacement, and resilience.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman & Samy Szlingerbaum – Le 15/8 (1973)

    1971-1980ArthouseBelgiumChantal AkermanSamy SzlingerbaumShort Film

    Mid-August in Paris (the title is a date: August 15) in a sunny, quiet apartment a young woman talks, thinks, reflects about herself, everyday life and little events in a long, uninterrupted monologue. The camera pictures her and her gestures in long, fixed shots moving around the rooms, the space, the light and shadows of a summer day.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Je Tu Il Elle (1974) (HD)

    1971-1980ArthouseChantal AkermanDramaFrance

    In her provocative first feature, Chantal Akerman stars as an aimless young woman who leaves self-imposed isolation to embark on a road trip that leads to lonely love affairs with a male truck driver and a former girlfriend.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Lettre d’un cinéaste: Chantal Akerman (1984)

    1981-1990ArthouseChantal AkermanFrance

    Quote:
    Shot while Akerman was in pre-production for Golden Eighties, Lettre d’un cinéaste was made for the television series Cinéma, cinéma, which routinely commissioned filmmakers to send in dispatches. Featuring Aurore Clément as the director’s accomplice/proxy (who asks “What is cinema for? Who is it for?”), this little experimental romp includes a list of what is required to make films, such as getting out of bed, eating, getting dressed — a light-hearted jest that nevertheless speaks truthfully to Akerman’s sense of cinema.
    – tiff.netRead More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Letters Home (1986)

    1981-1990ArthouseChantal AkermanFrancePerformance

    Quote:
    Keeping the original theatrical mise-en-scene, the film features Delphine Seyrig and her niece Coralie Seyrig reciting Sylvia Plath’s letters to her mother directly to the audience as though we were the recipients of these private missives.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Demain On Demenage aka Tomorrow We Move (2004)

    2001-2010ArthouseChantal AkermanComedyFrance

    FilmLinc wrote:
    The late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman brings us an intellectual comedy about a mother and daughter who find themselves living together for the first time in decades. Charlotte, a freelance writer, invites her recently widowed mother, Catherine, to live in her apartment, and the ensuing clutter becomes a source of irritation and strife. When Catherine decides to revitalize her career as a piano teacher, the claustrophobia reaches new and absurd levels. Charlotte continues to pursue her desperate quest for peace as Tomorrow We Move develops into a slyly Jewish tale of rootlessness and familial burdens.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – La folie Almayer AKA Almayer’s Folly (2011)

    2011-2020Chantal AkermanDramaFrance

    Quote:
    “Liberally adapted,” per onscreen credits, from Joseph Conrad’s first, same-named novel, helmer Chantal Akerman’s interpretation of “Almayer’s Folly” is as eccentric as “La Captive,” her take on Proust. Unfortunately, it’s not as disciplined as that earlier work, and this tale of a French colonialist’s fraught relationship with his mixed-race daughter seems thrown together on a low budget with a too-breezy disregard for cultural specifics. After a powerful opening scene and reasonably strong first act, the pic slowly leaks air. Helmer’s rep should ensure polite interest from fests and niche distribs with a track record of releasing Akerman’s work.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Là-bas aka Down there (2006)

    2001-2010ArthouseChantal AkermanFranceVideo Art

    Devastating essay on exile, Là-bas (2006) is a crucial moment of Akerman’s life when she herself was confined to a rental apartment in Tel Aviv unable to bridge the threshold to the outside world, overwhelmed by the flooding of traumatic thoughts, fears and vulnerabilities awakened by her family’s history with the death camps. Impossible not to think of her last work and of the reasons why she left when watching Là-bas today, which was also shot in video and similarly takes the shape of a personal, cloistered chamber piece.
    (Based on Andréa Picard’s article)Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Hôtel Monterey (1972)

    1971-1980ArchitectureBelgiumChantal AkermanDocumentaryExperimental

    Quote:
    New York City’s Monterey is a residence hotel; the residents we see are older, most live alone. The camera, usually stationery, begins with a look into the lobby. The film ends with a panorama from the hotel’s rooftop. There’s no soundtrack. The lobby is clean with granite floors. Men wear hats. People enter and exit an elevator. The camera looks out from within the elevator as doors open and close. People sit alone and motionless in their apartments. There are long shots of empty halls. Paint peels. The flooring on upper levels is linoleum. Hall lights are florescent. Doors open a crack then close. The film provides the feeling of what it’s like to live there.Read More »

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