Directed by Chantal Akerman

Directed by Chantal Akerman

12 Episodes

One of the boldest cinematic visionaries of the past half century, Chantal Akerman—who would have turned seventy this June—took a profoundly personal, aesthetically radical approach to the form, using it to investigate geography and identity, space and time, sexuality and alienation. Influenced by the structuralist cinema she was exposed to when she came to New York from her native Belgium in 1970, Akerman made her mark in the decade that followed, exploring the possibilities of long takes and formal repetition in works like the architectural meditation HOTEL MONTEREY, the obsessive portrait of estrangement JE TU IL ELLE, the autobiographical New York elegy NEWS FROM HOME, and the austere antiromance LES RENDEZ-VOUS D’ANNA. Her towering achievement, however, remains JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES, a domestic epic that has exerted an incalculable influence on the evolution of both feminist and avant-garde cinema. In later works like the singular musical GOLDEN EIGHTIES and the spellbinding Proust adaptation LA CAPTIVE, Akerman continued to expand the boundaries of cinematic language, leaving behind monumental landmarks that have pointed the way for a generation of artists who have followed in her footsteps.

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Directed by Chantal Akerman
  • Saute ma ville

    Episode 1

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1968 • Belgium

    Directed by and starring Chantal Akerman, this short film was made when she was just eighteen.

  • La chambre

    Episode 2

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1972 • Belgium

    In Chantal Akerman's early short film LA CHAMBRE, we see the furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life, with Akerman herself staring back at us. This breakthrough formal experiment is the first film ...

  • Hotel Monterey

    Episode 3

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1972 • United States

    Under Chantal Akerman's watchful eye, a cheap Manhattan hotel glows with mystery and unexpected beauty, its corridors, elevators, rooms, windows, and occasional occupants framed like Edward Hopper tableaux.

  • Je tu il elle

    Episode 4

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • France

    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. With its famous real-time...

  • Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

    Episode 5

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • Belgium
    Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte

    A singular work in film history, Chantal Akerman’s JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES meticulously details, with a sense of impending doom, the daily routine of a middle-aged widow, whose chores ...

  • News from Home

    Episode 6

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1976 • United States

    Letters from Chantal Akerman's mother are read over a series of elegantly composed shots of 1976 New York, where our (unseen) filmmaker and protagonist has relocated. Akerman's unforgettable time capsule of the city is also a gorgeous meditati...

  • Les rendez-vous d'Anna

    Episode 7

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1978 • France

    In one of Akerman's most penetrating character studies, Anna, an accomplished filmmaker (played by Aurore Clément), makes her way through a series of European cities to promote her latest movie. Via a succession of eerie, exquisitely shot, brief enco...

  • Dis-moi

    Episode 8

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1980 • France

    For a French television series about grandmothers, Chantal Akerman interviews elderly women who survived the Shoah, including her own mother, whose experience in the Holocaust reverberated throughout the artist’s life and work.

  • Golden Eighties

    Episode 9

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1986 • Belgium, France
    Starring Delphine Seyrig, Fanny Cottençon, Pascale Salkin

    The exuberant enchantments of the singing, dancing musical meet the feminist, formalist sensibility of cinematic visionary Chantal Akerman in this uniquely captivating vision of love an...

  • Histoires d’Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy

    Episode 10

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1989 • Belgium, France
    Starring George Bartenieff, Judith Malina, Eszter Balint

    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...

  • La captive

    Episode 11

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 2000 • Belgium, France
    Starring Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar, Olivia Bonamy

    Adapting the fifth volume of Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time,” Chantal Akerman transforms the material into a mesmerizing study of voyeurism, control, and sexual obsession centere...

  • No Home Movie

    Episode 12

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 2015 • France, Belgium
    Starring Natalia Akerman, Chantal Akerman, Sylvaine Akerman

    The final film from groundbreaking auteur Chantal Akerman is a deeply personal, heart-woundingly intimate portrait of her relationship with her mother, Natalia, a Holocaust survivor a...