Chantal Akerman
Birthday: 1950-06-06
Place of Birth: Brussels, Belgium
Biography: Chantal Anne Akerman (June 6, 1950 – October 5, 2015) was a Belgian film director, artist and professor of film at the City College of New York. Her best-known film is Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). Despite being categorised as such by others, Akerman frequently distanced herself from the feminist label, explaining, "when people say there is a feminist film language, it is like saying there is only one way for women to express themselves". Instead, Akerman acknowledged that her cinematic approach took inspiration from the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, as well as from filmmakers Michael Snow and Jean-Luc Godard. Many directors have cited Akerman's directorial style as an influence on their work. Kelly Reichardt, Gus Van Sant, and Sofia Coppola have noted their exploration of filming in real time as a tribute to Akerman.
Movies
Blow Up My Town
A young girl shuts herself away in her apartment and goes about her business in a strange way, as sh...
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Seven Women, Seven Sins
Seven Women, Seven Sins (1986) represents a quintessential moment in film history. The women filmmak...
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Je Tu Il Elle
A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup....
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News from Home
Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman lives in New York. Filmed images of the City accompany texts of Ak...
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Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores and takes care of her apartment where she lives wit...
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The Room
Furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Ake...
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She Spent So Many Hours Under the Sun Lamps
A young film director is making a movie with his friend Christa. In the film-within-the-film there a...
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Pictures of Europe
What makes European cinema so special? Find out in Paul Joyce’s feature-length documentary, Pictures...
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Chantal Akerman, From Here
Invented by the post-New Wave, the exercise is well-known: put a filmmaker in the frame, make him ta...
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Guest
Filmmaker José Luis Guerin documents his experience during a year of traveling as a guest of film fe...
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Knokke: une petite fiction 2
A 3rd short super 8 film made by Chantal Akerman in Knokke to be used to be accepted at INSAS starri...
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Autour de La Folie Almayer
An in-depth, behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Chantal Akerman's 2011 film adaptatio...
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Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman
Janine Bazin and André Labarthe approached Chantal Akerman about making a film for the series; eager...
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No Home Movie
Documentary about humans dealing with changing technology, the basic concepts of communication, cine...
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The Man with the Suitcase
A sensitivity to sounds coming from the activities of an unwelcome guest in the close quarters of an...
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Porto
Jake and Mati are two outsiders in the northerly Portuguese city of Porto who once experienced a bri...
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I Don't Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman
I Don’t Belong Anywhere - Le Cinéma de Chantal Akerman, explores some of the Belgian filmmaker’s 40...
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Tell Me
Chantal Akerman meets with elderly Jewish women in Paris, all of them survivors of the Shoah, and li...
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The Ministries of Art
Philippe Garrel’s documentary on France’s second wave of masterful filmmakers. Featuring Jean Eustac...
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What Is Cinema?
Using the words and ideas of great filmmakers, from archival interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and Ro...
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Chantal Akerman: Always on the Road
An analysis of the work of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman (1950-2015), an experimental and innova...
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Family Business
Chantal Akerman was commissioned by Visions to make this short film for £20,000. It was first shown ...
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The Day When...
Chantal Akerman reads a script detailing the woes that befell her on the day she thought about "The ...
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My Name is Chantal Akerman
In August 2012, Chantal Akerman went scouting in the American South with the idea of shooting a docu...
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Making of Tomorrow We Move
What a revelation and a privilege it is to see Chantal Akerman at work. Its French title a pun, this...
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The Beloved Child, or I Play at Being a Married Woman
A young mother, alone with her daughter, confides in a friend who happens to be the director herself...
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What Lies Beneath the Sky
What Lies Beneath the Sky is a portrait of New York City hit by hurricane Sandy shot in Super 8....
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Autour de Jeanne Dielman
During the filming of "Jeanne Dielman" Sami Frey recorded what was happening on the set. A film abou...
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Birth of a Nation
Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independe...
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Letter from a Filmmaker: Chantal Akerman
A filmmaker’s self-portrait, asking hard questions of herself and of us. Invoking Aurore Clément as ...
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Down There
Akerman spends a brief period on her own in an apartment by the sea in Tel Aviv. She films from the...
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‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen
Various unrelated vignettes, often juxtaposing sound and image....
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But Elsewhere Is Always Better
A new short film by Vivian Ostrovsky remembering Chantal Akerman, beginning with their first meeting...
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Maniac Summer
Maniac Summer consists of images and sounds recorded in Paris in the summer of 2009. It is a sprawli...
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De droomproducenten
Documentary exploring why Belgian television doesn't invest more money in Belgian cinema as is the c...
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Chantal Akerman
Interview with the Belgian director discussing her films from the 1970s and her mother’s influence o...
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Portrait of a Lazy Woman
Belgian director Chantal Akerman struggles to overcome her laziness in the name of making a film abo...
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Mallet-Stevens Street
Commissioned for the centenary of the famous French architect and designer Robert Mallet-Stevens and...
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Interview with Aurore Clément
"Aurore, my friend, Aurore, the main actress of Rendez-vous d'Anna and other films of mine, our meet...
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Interview with Babette Mangolte
"To begin with, we have Babette Mangolte, the camera technician on Hotel Monterey, La Chambre and Je...
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Interview with my mother, Natalia Akerman
In this 2007 interview, an off-camera Chantal Akerman interviews her mother about her films. The pro...
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My Mother Laughs Prelude
“My mother laughs prelude” is a performance from the book that Chantal made about her mother. In 201...
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Delphine and Carole
In the 70s, actress Delphine Seyrig and director Carole Roussopoulos, both militant feminists, were ...
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One Day Pina Asked...
Chantal Akerman followed famous Choreographer Pina Bausch and her company of dancers, The Tanzteater...
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Sodankylä Forever
The Midnight Sun Film Festival is held every June in the Finnish village of Sodankylä beyond the arc...
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The Art of Time
Explores some of the most innovative attempts by contemporary artists, filmmakers, architects etc to...
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Son chant
Going through my mini DVs shot over the past decade, I rediscovered a forgotten night sequence of Ch...
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Examen d'entrée INSAS
The beginnings of Chantal Akerman behind the camera at the ages of 17 and 18: four films shot in Sup...
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From the Other Side
A documentary look at the fate of Mexicans who cross the border into the United States....
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Calling the Shots
Documentary about women in the film industry. Numerous notable actresses and female directors share ...
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On Belonging
Ibro Hasanović met Chantal Akerman in 2014. From their recent friendship, this film was born, where ...
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Untitled
In this recently rediscovered home movie, three women—Chantal Akerman, Babette Mangolte, and Epp Kot...
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In Her Own Words
This visual essay, produced in 2023, builds upon rare radio interviews that Chantal Akerman gave in ...
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Lettre de cinéaste : Chantal Akerman
The program Cinéma, cinémas regularly commissioned filmmakers to produce a cinematic letter in which...
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