Directed by Chantal Akerman
11 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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13:22Episode 1Saute 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.
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11:14Episode 2La 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 ...
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1:02:26Episode 3Hotel 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.
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1:26:03Episode 4Je 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...
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Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Episode 5
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • Belgium
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Jan DecorteA 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 ...
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1:29:20Episode 6News 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...
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2:07:32Episode 7Les 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...
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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.
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1:37:30Episode 9Golden Eighties
Episode 9
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1986 • Belgium, France
Starring Delphine Seyrig, Fanny Cottençon, Pascale SalkinThe 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...
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Histoires d’Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy
Episode 10
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1989 • Belgium, France
Starring George Bartenieff, Judith Malina, Eszter BalintChantal 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...
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1:58:41Episode 11La captive
Episode 11
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 2000 • Belgium, France
Starring Sylvie Testud, Stanislas Merhar, Olivia BonamyAdapting 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...
