Films byTexts by Chantal Akerman

Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, producer, artist and writer born in Brussels. Her directorial debut at 18 years old was Saute ma ville (1968). She made more than 40 films, including Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and the documentary trilogy DʼEst (1993), Sud (1999), and De lʼautre côté (2002).

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1968, 13’

…a young lady in her apartment’s kitchen mops the floors, polishes her shoes, dances, cooks, drinks wine, then she duct-tapes the door, opens the gas and blows everything up – humming all along.

 

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1972, 11’

Panning shots describe the space of a room as a succession of still lives: a chair, some fruit on a table, a collection of solitary, waiting objects. Sitting on the bed there is the presence of a young woman: the filmmaker herself, eating an apple.

 

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1972, 65’

“In the second of her 1972 experiments, Akerman again wanted to draw viewers’ eyes to elements in the frame that they might not otherwise have considered. Similarly focused on architecture and interior spaces, Hotel Mônterey is grander in scope than La chambre.

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1974, 86’

« Je, tu, il, elle est un film unique, pour moi : il reste extrêmement fort parce qu’il est fait avec sa chair, sa peau, sa vie. Quand on dit que quelqu’un a tout mis dans un film, on peut dire qu’elle a effectivement toujours tout mis dans son cinéma, sans artifice. »

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1975, 201’

Jeanne Dielman, a lonely young widow, lives with her son Sylvain following an immutable order: while the boy is in school, she cares for their apartment, does chores, and receives clients in the afternoon. However, something happens that changes her safe routine.

 

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1977, 85’

News from Home consists of long takes of locations in New York City, set to Akerman’s voice-over as she reads letters her mother sent her between 1971 and 1973, when the director lived in the city.

 

Dear child,

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1978, 127’

Anna, an accomplished filmmaker makes her way through a series of anonymous European cities to promote her latest movie. She meets strangers and lovers and then visits her mother in Brussels. Throughout, people make personal revelations to her, and Anna listens with little affect.

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1982, 90’

In the night, a door suddenly opens.

A woman, her shoes in her hand, throws herself into the arms of a man.  

A phone rings, a man rushes in, out of breath.  

A slow dance crosses the feverish night.  

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1983, 82’

“It begins with voices heard over black - the voice of an actor and a director, trying to find the right intonation for a short enigmatic phrase: ‘A ton âge, un chagrin, c’est vite passé’ - meaning, ‘At your age sorrows soon pass’, or maybe, ‘At your age misery doesn’t last’.

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1984, 12’

“Je moet alleen doen waar je echt zin in hebt, zei ze me. Als je als toneelregisseur enkel zin hebt om Tsjechows stukken te ensceneren, omdat je dat het mooiste vindt van wat er ooit voor het toneel geschreven is, dan doe je dat toch, zegt ze.

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1986, 96’

“Aanvankelijk zin om een komedie te maken. 

Een komedie over de liefde... en de handel. 

Burlesk; teder, waanzinnig. 

Vervolgens was één plaats het uitgangspunt van alles. 

Een plaats die ik goed ken omdat ik er verscheidene malen als verkoopster heb gewerkt.

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1993, 107’

Following the demolition of the Berlin Wall, Chantal Akerman captures the reality and mutation of former Soviet territories, shot from summer through to winter in a series of travelling shots or with a static camera.

 

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 1999, 71’

For Sud, Chantal Akerman traveled to the American South after having discovered that a black man named James Byrd Jr. was gruesomely murdered by three white men.

FILM
Chantal Akerman, 2015, 115’

Daniel Kasman: This is not the first film we’ve seen of yours that is about your relationship with your mother. This has been a filmmaking motif for you. Can you say something about its importance, the relationship to your filmmaking practice?