BFI Distribution has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights to the film catalogue of late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman.
The collection of 20 fiction and documentary features and short films was acquired from the Fondation Chantal Akerman, in partnership with the Royal Film Archive of Belgium.
BFI Distribution will give a theatrical re-release in 2025 to Akerman’s 1975 feature Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles as part of a package of Akerman films.
The package is part of a wider BFI project in 2025 to celebrate Akerman, including a retrospective season at London’s BFI Southbank, BFI Blu-ray releases and titles on BFI Player.
The collection of 20 fiction and documentary features and short films was acquired from the Fondation Chantal Akerman, in partnership with the Royal Film Archive of Belgium.
BFI Distribution will give a theatrical re-release in 2025 to Akerman’s 1975 feature Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles as part of a package of Akerman films.
The package is part of a wider BFI project in 2025 to celebrate Akerman, including a retrospective season at London’s BFI Southbank, BFI Blu-ray releases and titles on BFI Player.
- 4/9/2024
- ScreenDaily
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSGoodbye, Dragon Inn.It’s getting harder to go to the movies. IndieWire surveys the state of cinemagoing in the US region by region as multiplexes continue to shutter. From downtown Detroit, the closest first-run theater is now in Canada.More than 500 pro-Palestinian demonstrators staged a sit-in at MoMA on Saturday, protesting the museum trustees’ alleged investments in weapons used by the Israeli military in Gaza. The museum closed its doors to the public and rescheduled planned programming.After confirming that three sitting representatives of the far-right AfD party had been invited to tomorrow night’s Berlinale opening ceremony, amid public outcry, the festival has now disinvited them.REMEMBERINGRocky II.The tributes to Carl Weathers continue to roll in after his death last week at the...
- 2/28/2024
- MUBI
We walk among ghosts in cities, storied urban constructs with layers of misty memories one can sense in their distinct smells, and perceive in their dated cracks and imperfections. There are hundreds of thousands of such ghosts that haunt Steve McQueen’s audacious documentary essay “Occupied City,” a 2023 Cannes premiere that is as much a hypnotizing and cumulatively disquieting cinematic artifact about the Holocaust and World War II-era Amsterdam as it is a stubbornly single-minded historical art installation.
The simplest way to describe “Occupied City” would be calling it an extensive guided tour of Amsterdam’s past that uses Bianca Stigter’s book, “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945)” as a compass. McQueen’s camera travels through 130 specific addresses in the present-day of his adopted town. Let’s call it near-present-day to be exact — “Occupied City” strolls through the Dutch capital mostly during the earliest days of the Covid lockdown,...
The simplest way to describe “Occupied City” would be calling it an extensive guided tour of Amsterdam’s past that uses Bianca Stigter’s book, “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945)” as a compass. McQueen’s camera travels through 130 specific addresses in the present-day of his adopted town. Let’s call it near-present-day to be exact — “Occupied City” strolls through the Dutch capital mostly during the earliest days of the Covid lockdown,...
- 5/17/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- The Wrap
While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke
One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...
China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke
One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...
- 9/3/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A crippling year for theatrical exhibition, the pandemic-forced shutdowns meant most films weren’t available for viewing in their ideal presentation. However, through the invention and proliferation of Virtual Cinemas as well as festivals going online, it meant more people could get access to films they otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do so for some time. And with nearly all blockbusters delayed to 2021 or beyond, it meant the more nimble ecosystem of independent and foreign film got the spotlight. Which is to say, there were a few bright points in an otherwise bleak cinematic landscape. So, as we look to hopefully a more promising year, it’s my hope exhibition can survive alongside this more accessible virtual world.
Looking back at the 2020 new releases, there’s a number of films that narrowly missed my top 15, including Dick Johnson Is Dead, The Assistant, Bacurau, Boys State, Minari, Mangrove,...
Looking back at the 2020 new releases, there’s a number of films that narrowly missed my top 15, including Dick Johnson Is Dead, The Assistant, Bacurau, Boys State, Minari, Mangrove,...
- 1/11/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Isabel Sandoval’s “Lingua Franca” is a visually gorgeous drama from the auteur filmmaker who also stars in the film, now streaming on Netflix.
Sandoval plays Olivia, an undocumented Filipina trans woman who spends her days working as a caretaker for Olga (the late Lynn Cohen). Set in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, the film delights in the unsaid with moments of silence adding to the emotional impact as Olivia soon finds herself in a relationship with Olga’s grandson, Alex.
The New York of “Lingua Franca” is not the familiar setting — it’s a Russian-Jewish neighborhood that Sandoval and her Dp Issac Banks spent time scouting, looking for the perfect location.
Banks made his feature-length film debut with a style that lingers on interior shots, framing Olivia’s safe space and presenting the images in a picturesque way. When she leaves the safety of home, Banks composes beautiful shots but...
Sandoval plays Olivia, an undocumented Filipina trans woman who spends her days working as a caretaker for Olga (the late Lynn Cohen). Set in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, the film delights in the unsaid with moments of silence adding to the emotional impact as Olivia soon finds herself in a relationship with Olga’s grandson, Alex.
The New York of “Lingua Franca” is not the familiar setting — it’s a Russian-Jewish neighborhood that Sandoval and her Dp Issac Banks spent time scouting, looking for the perfect location.
Banks made his feature-length film debut with a style that lingers on interior shots, framing Olivia’s safe space and presenting the images in a picturesque way. When she leaves the safety of home, Banks composes beautiful shots but...
- 9/9/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
Ad Astra (James Gray)
A testament to the immaculate scope that can be realized when a director with a specific vision is given the resources to convey it, Ad Astra is a masterclass in detail. In this Brad Pitt-led story of a space odyssey, one gets the sense that every miniscule touch was carefully considered, culminating in the most purely pleasurable time I had at a theater last year (a feeling invigorated by one of the biggest IMAX screens in the world). The nearly indescribable sensations Gray is able to conjure by going for more subdued grace notes make the awe-inspiring moments all the more sublime.
Ad Astra (James Gray)
A testament to the immaculate scope that can be realized when a director with a specific vision is given the resources to convey it, Ad Astra is a masterclass in detail. In this Brad Pitt-led story of a space odyssey, one gets the sense that every miniscule touch was carefully considered, culminating in the most purely pleasurable time I had at a theater last year (a feeling invigorated by one of the biggest IMAX screens in the world). The nearly indescribable sensations Gray is able to conjure by going for more subdued grace notes make the awe-inspiring moments all the more sublime.
- 6/12/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
No Data PlanLincoln Center’s Art of the Real festival has returned for its sixth edition, showcasing new works of independent cinema that expand and destabilize inherited definitions of documentary and fiction by fruitfully obscuring the line between those two seemingly opposite forms. Surveying the border where non-fiction seamlessly fades into fiction and vice versa, it is a festival that celebrates a kind of cinema that exists largely on the periphery of what is accepted as documentary, exhibiting films that explore their own hybridity, while still engaging with content that is at once personal and very much tethered to the real world. Take, for example, Filipino filmmaker Miko Revereza’s travelogue No Data Plan, a film modest in scale—Revereza essentially covers all production roles—yet one that is able to summon forth a network of associations and ideas that touch both on the present moment and reach into a relentless past.
- 4/22/2019
- MUBI
The Video Essay is a joint project of Mubi and Filmadrid Festival Internacional de Cine. Film analysis and criticism found a completely new and innovative path with the arrival of the video essay, a relatively recent form that already has its own masters and is becoming increasingly popular. The limits of this discipline are constantly expanding; new essayists are finding innovative ways to study the history of cinema working with images. With this non-competitive section of the festival both Mubi and Filmadrid will offer the platform and visibility the video essay deserves. The seven selected works will be shown during the dates of Filmadrid (June 8 - 17, 2017) on Mubi’s cinema publication, the Notebook. Also there will be a free public screening of the selected works during the festival. The selection was made by the programmers of Mubi and Filmadrid.News from D'estVideo essay by Sonsoles CompanyVideo essay about two Chantal Akerman films (News from Home,...
- 6/12/2017
- MUBI
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Folk Hero & Funny Guy (Jeff Grace)
The bond of male friendship is examined – and tested – in Folk Hero & Funny Guy, a short and sweet dramedy from multi-hyphenate Jeff Grace, who writes and directs. We meet comedian Paul (Alex Karpovsky) at the end of a tired stand-up routine in a beer-stained comedy club. Meanwhile, Paul’s childhood friend Jason (Wyatt Russell) has built a successful career for himself as a folk music star.
Folk Hero & Funny Guy (Jeff Grace)
The bond of male friendship is examined – and tested – in Folk Hero & Funny Guy, a short and sweet dramedy from multi-hyphenate Jeff Grace, who writes and directs. We meet comedian Paul (Alex Karpovsky) at the end of a tired stand-up routine in a beer-stained comedy club. Meanwhile, Paul’s childhood friend Jason (Wyatt Russell) has built a successful career for himself as a folk music star.
- 5/12/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Babette Mangolte. © Fleur van Muiswinkel If the name Babette Mangolte doesn’t ring with the same familiarity as such storied French cinematographers as Raoul Coutard and William Lubtchansky, it’s not for lack of innovation or accomplishment. Born in Montmorot in 1941, Mangolte moved to New York in 1970 following a number of years as an assistant cinematographer and apprentice to director Marcel Hanoun. There she quickly integrated herself into the city’s burgeoning experimental cinema scene, befriending luminaries such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, and soon after met a 20-year-old Chantal Akerman whom she proceeded to collaborate with on a series of groundbreaking works throughout the mid-70s. Influenced as much by structuralism as the films of the French New Wave, Mangolte and Akerman deftly utilized time and space as cinematic conduits to visually articulate themes of dislocation, alienation, and female autonomy. Their most celebrated work, the landmark feminist dispositif Jeanne Dielman,...
- 3/30/2017
- MUBI
I’ve been making 16mm durational urban landscape voiceover films, slowly but surely, since the late ‘90s. My short film Blue Diary premiered at the Berlinale in 1998. My two features, The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) both premiered in the prestigious New Frontiers section at the Sundance Film Festival and have been as wildly successful as experimental films can be. Which is to say, they remain fairly obscure. My small but enthusiastic fan-base frequently asks me for recommendations of films that are similar to my own in terms of incorporating durational landscapes and voiceover and a meditative pace. While it is certainly one of the smallest subgenres in the realm of filmmaking, here are a handful of excellent landscape cinema examples by the practitioners I know best. I confess that my expertise here is limited and hope that the learned Mubi community will chime in with additions in the comments field below.
- 10/11/2016
- MUBI
Wieczór (An Evening)“Those are the kinds of things I like to remember,” says an elderly widow reminiscing about her granddaughter’s first communion at the end of Never Eat Alone, Sofia Bohdanowicz’s tender, touching feature debut. It’s a line that reverberates not just through the film itself—which is premiering in Future//Present, a new program of the Vancouver International Film Festival dedicated to emerging voices in Canadian film—but also throughout Bohdanowicz’s small, but distinctive body of work thus far.The infinities of a life, whether shared or solitary, remembered or forgotten, lived or imagined, seem to be at the heart of the Toronto native’s cinema, which is certainly true of the three shorts she directed in 2013 and which are screening alongside her debut feature. All shot in the Etobicoke home of her paternal grandmother, the films are at once formally rigorous and intensely personal,...
- 9/23/2016
- MUBI
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
A Robert Aldrich retrospective has begun and is rich with pleasures.
The Howard Hughes-produced Cock of the Air and Visconti‘s Sandra screen on Sunday.
Chantal Akerman‘s masterpiece News from Home plays this Friday and Saturday. The Disney documentary Monkey Kingdom shows on the latter day and Sunday.
Museum of Modern Art...
Metrograph
A Robert Aldrich retrospective has begun and is rich with pleasures.
The Howard Hughes-produced Cock of the Air and Visconti‘s Sandra screen on Sunday.
Chantal Akerman‘s masterpiece News from Home plays this Friday and Saturday. The Disney documentary Monkey Kingdom shows on the latter day and Sunday.
Museum of Modern Art...
- 9/16/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Boy and the Beast (Mamoru Hosoda)
Two worlds collide once young Kyuta (Shôta Sometani) and warrior Kumatetsu (Kôji Yakusho) meet in Mamoru Hosoda‘s The Boy and the Beast. The former was recently orphaned after his mother’s death (she had divorced his father years ago and her family refuses to get in touch with him), currently working his way towards becoming a solitary street...
The Boy and the Beast (Mamoru Hosoda)
Two worlds collide once young Kyuta (Shôta Sometani) and warrior Kumatetsu (Kôji Yakusho) meet in Mamoru Hosoda‘s The Boy and the Beast. The former was recently orphaned after his mother’s death (she had divorced his father years ago and her family refuses to get in touch with him), currently working his way towards becoming a solitary street...
- 6/10/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Glenn here. Each Tuesday we bring you reviews and features on documentaries from theatres, festivals, and on demand. This week we look at Chantal Akerman's final film, 'No Home Movie'.
If No Home Movie is any indication, then Chantal Akerman had a lot of creativity inside of her to offer at the time of her far too premature death at age 65. I have no doubt that this, her final film, will likely confound those who find their way to it out of mere curiosity, but – and this is true of many films by many filmmakers, but especially so here – No Home Movie is a film that will most definitely play as something far deeper and more personal to somebody who is more familiar with her back catalogue than somebody who isn’t.
I know that sometimes it sounds awfully pretentious to say that. Who can be expected...
If No Home Movie is any indication, then Chantal Akerman had a lot of creativity inside of her to offer at the time of her far too premature death at age 65. I have no doubt that this, her final film, will likely confound those who find their way to it out of mere curiosity, but – and this is true of many films by many filmmakers, but especially so here – No Home Movie is a film that will most definitely play as something far deeper and more personal to somebody who is more familiar with her back catalogue than somebody who isn’t.
I know that sometimes it sounds awfully pretentious to say that. Who can be expected...
- 5/31/2016
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor are joined by Lady P from the FlixWise podcast to discuss Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies.
About the films:
Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinema’s most distinctive bodies of work—formally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made in the 1970s in the United States and Europe and strongly influenced by the New York experimental film scene. Bold and iconoclastic, these five films pushed...
About the films:
Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinema’s most distinctive bodies of work—formally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made in the 1970s in the United States and Europe and strongly influenced by the New York experimental film scene. Bold and iconoclastic, these five films pushed...
- 4/29/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
BAMcinématek
“Chantal Akerman: Images Between the Images” continues with Night and Day on Friday, News from Home this Saturday, and, on Sunday, Golden Eighties and The Meetings of Anna.
Metrograph
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers The Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter on Friday, Deux Fois on Saturday, and, this Sunday, three short films by Julie Dash.
BAMcinématek
“Chantal Akerman: Images Between the Images” continues with Night and Day on Friday, News from Home this Saturday, and, on Sunday, Golden Eighties and The Meetings of Anna.
Metrograph
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers The Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter on Friday, Deux Fois on Saturday, and, this Sunday, three short films by Julie Dash.
- 4/15/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Photo by Sophie BeeIn the display window of a used record store, you can see covers for albums that don’t exist. They bear titles like Flaming Creatures or Heaven and Earth Magic, familiar to aficionados of experimental film, alongside lurid designs by local artist Tom Carey. This exhibit can mean only one thing: the film festival has come to Ann Arbor. Just down the block is the Michigan Theater, which has been operating since 1928. For one week every spring, its spacious main auditorium and cozy screening room host an intimidating array of avant-garde programming. The selections are eclectic in subject matter, submitted from all over the world, and interspersed with recently restored prints of older works. This practice means that no presentation is predictable. The only constant that carries across the festival is the artists’ collective push against the traditional boundaries of their medium.An example of this ethos...
- 4/8/2016
- by Alice Stoehr
- MUBI
Few filmmakers have seen a spike in attention over these past six months quite like Chantal Akerman, albeit for the worst of reasons. Following her passing in October, now widely believed to have been by her own hand, the Belgian icon’s cinema is more widely than ever recognized for the genius of its many approaches to form. And so while we’re reflecting so heavily for, yes, the worst of reasons, now might also be the best time for an in-depth documentary about what she gave us.
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman seeks to do just that, with director Marianne Lambert (Akerman’s former unit production manager) following the filmmaker during the making of No Home Movie while stringing together a discussion of the many films in her oeuvre and the numerous places they span — Paris, Brussels, Israel, and New York among them. The...
I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman seeks to do just that, with director Marianne Lambert (Akerman’s former unit production manager) following the filmmaker during the making of No Home Movie while stringing together a discussion of the many films in her oeuvre and the numerous places they span — Paris, Brussels, Israel, and New York among them. The...
- 3/22/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
In today's roundup of news and views, we collect further tributes to the late Jacques Rivette. Plus: Essays on Charles Chaplin's The Kid, Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging, Mike Nichols's The Graduate, Chantal Akerman's News from Home, Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, Louis Ck's Horace and Pete, David O. Russell's Joy, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa, Philippe Garrel's In the Shadow of Women, the impact of War Games and The Blair Witch Project as well as Jonathan Rosenbaum on Kon Ichikawa, Pedro Costa, Yasujiro Ozu, Danièle Huillet and Marcel L’Herbier. And more. » - David Hudson...
- 2/23/2016
- Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views, we collect further tributes to the late Jacques Rivette. Plus: Essays on Charles Chaplin's The Kid, Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging, Mike Nichols's The Graduate, Chantal Akerman's News from Home, Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, Louis Ck's Horace and Pete, David O. Russell's Joy, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa, Philippe Garrel's In the Shadow of Women, the impact of War Games and The Blair Witch Project as well as Jonathan Rosenbaum on Kon Ichikawa, Pedro Costa, Yasujiro Ozu, Danièle Huillet and Marcel L’Herbier. And more. » - David Hudson...
- 2/23/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Above: UK one sheet for The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, UK, 1976). Designed and illustrated by Vic Fair.David Bowie, who left our planet this week, appeared in some 20 movies, but his appearances on movie posters are restricted to just a handful of films. Many of his roles, especially in later years, were cameos or small, but significant, character parts. He memorably played Pontius Pilate in Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat (1996), and Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006); he appeared as himself in films as varied as Christiane F. (1981), Zoolander (2001) and Bandslam (2009); and he was endearingly strange as an FBI agent in the opening section of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992).His most important and iconic film role by far is his starring role as the titular alien in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth...
- 1/16/2016
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
The alarm clock cries in my bedside table. 8am. Right, here we go. Grab clothes for yet another day, don’t forget the body soap, the moisturizer and the black mascara and off I go to start my daily ritual lively practiced inside my tiny toilet. Repetitive motions are evoked…teeth are washed, hair is brushed, boot laces are entwined around my unreliable feet, eggs are scrambled in the tormented pan, coffee is brewed, lights are shut, doors are locked, and a cigarette is delightedly lit—all as if I was skimming through the prologue of a novel I have lazily read too many times before. My feet move to the rhythm of the rain incessantly falling on the grey pavement and my bones fear the unpredictability of what may come in the following hours, but I never stop. I never do. (…) The ritual has somehow turned into tradition and...
- 12/31/2015
- by Susana Bessa
- MUBI
In The Mirror (1971/2007). Photo by Sarah Cuono.1.Several of Chantal Akerman’s installation works are remediations of previous films. In the Mirror (1971/2007) consists of a scene from an early film (1971’s L’enfant aime – ou je joue a etre une femme mariee) in which a young woman stands naked in front of a mirror, examining her body feature by feature. The slab of grainy footage is the first thing one sees, entering the dark space of Ambika P3 gallery in London, currently hosting Now, a large exhibition of Akerman’s installation work. Below and to the right, sounds leak from the other exhibits and the question becomes–more or less instantly–at what point does one move away from the image that In the Mirror so candidly offers up? This question is never a problem in the cinema. Indeed, Akerman’s particular cinema is at its most effective when her...
- 12/3/2015
- by Tom Stevenson
- MUBI
This summer’s blockbuster N.W.A biopic, Straight Outta Compton, will be getting two new soundtrack releases in early 2016. One of these, titled Straight Outta Compton: The Soundtrack (not to be confused with Dr. Dre’s Compton) boasts remastered versions of classic N.W.A cuts like "Fuck Tha Police," "Express Yourself" and the title track. The 17-track effort is rounded out by solo tunes from group members Ice Cube ("No Vaseline"), Eazy-e ("Boyz-n-The Hood") and Dr. Dre ("Nuthin' But a G Thang"), as well as relevant tracks from acts like Parliament,...
- 11/18/2015
- Rollingstone.com
“Criminally unfair. Those are the two words that spring to mind when I consider the fate of female directors throughout the short history of the cinematic medium. Not enough opportunity. Appalling sexism. Terrible chance and circumstances, coupled with biases, slander and mistrust,” our friend Scout Tafoya stated when asking a group of critics for their favorite films directed by female filmmakers. He added, “When I began asking for these lists from all the critics below many replied reluctantly. Their reasoning that so many of their films would be modern, that so many of the classics would be homogenous, is not without justification. But it’s no one’s fault that we all fall back on the same seven classics.”
He continues, “It’s a worldwide shortage of support and funding for female artists. It’s a lack of distribution of more esoteric work by women. It’s many major film...
He continues, “It’s a worldwide shortage of support and funding for female artists. It’s a lack of distribution of more esoteric work by women. It’s many major film...
- 11/17/2015
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) - Belgian Filmmaker. She made one of the most famous feminist films of all time, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (see below). Her other notable works include The Meetings of Anna, News From Home, Hotel Monterey, On Tour with Pina Bausch, A Couch in New York, From the East, From the Other Side and her latest documentary, No Home Movie, about her late mother. She committed suicide on October 5...
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- 11/3/2015
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
The ninth entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin.***It is something of a pity that, due to the sterling work of Criterion and the Belgian Cinematek, Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) is today best known and celebrated chiefly for her widely accessible string of 1970s masterpieces—Je tu il elle (1974), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), News from Home (1976), and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)—to the exclusion of anything much else that followed in the subsequent 35 years of her career. Many recent tributes to her memory and legacy hardly mention this total body of work or, if so, only cursorily. Yet Akerman’s level of achievement and inventiveness never flagged. Just taking her fiction feature film output alone, her later trajectory is marked by four towering masterpieces roughly a decade apart: Toute une nuit (1982), Nuit et jour (1991), La captive (1999), and Almayer’s Folly...
- 10/28/2015
- by Cristina Álvarez López & Adrian Martin
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Chantal Akerman's Je tu il elle"She was a gay woman – proudly, unabashedly – who refused to be placed in either category, would not show her work in “gay” or “women’s” festivals, (“I won’t be ghettoized like that”) but never refused the ghetto of Judaism, and would always show in Jewish festivals. She was, it sometimes seemed, a Jew before she was anything, even before she was a person, and she was more of a person than anybody I’ve known."...from "Our Lives With (and Without) Chantal Akerman," by Henry Bean.Another Chantal Akerman tribute done proper: Janus Films is making its Akerman films—News from Home, La chambre, Je tu il elle, Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, Hotel Monterey, and Les rendez-vous d'Anna—available to stream for U.
- 10/14/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
In light of the tragic death of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, the Montreal International Documentary Festival (Ridm) will pay tribute to the distinguished member of the cinema community. Here is the press release:
Her final film, No Home Movie, presented in the official competition at the Locarno Festival this summer, will be screened at this November’s Ridm, as will a portrait of the director, I Don’t Belong Anywhere – Le cinéma de Chantal Akerman, directed by Marianne Lambert, who will attend the festival. Festivalgoers will also have the chance to rediscover Akerman’s De l’autre côté, her 2002 documentary about Mexican migrants.
In No Home Movie, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, whose previous films include Je, tu, il, elle (1975), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and La captive (2000), filmed a portrait of her now deceased mother. Echoing News From Home (1977), in which the director filmed New York while reading letters, in voiceover,...
Her final film, No Home Movie, presented in the official competition at the Locarno Festival this summer, will be screened at this November’s Ridm, as will a portrait of the director, I Don’t Belong Anywhere – Le cinéma de Chantal Akerman, directed by Marianne Lambert, who will attend the festival. Festivalgoers will also have the chance to rediscover Akerman’s De l’autre côté, her 2002 documentary about Mexican migrants.
In No Home Movie, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, whose previous films include Je, tu, il, elle (1975), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and La captive (2000), filmed a portrait of her now deceased mother. Echoing News From Home (1977), in which the director filmed New York while reading letters, in voiceover,...
- 10/13/2015
- by Ricky Fernandes
- SoundOnSight
As tributes to the late Chantal Akerman continue to pour in from all corners of the globe, Indiewire mourns the loss of the Belgian filmmaker with a list of her acclaimed titles now available to stream online. There's no better way to honor Akerman today than by sampling her diverse body of work, and luckily there is quite a selection available for rent. From some of her most recent features to her 1975 magnum opus, "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles," below are the eight Akerman films now available online. Synopses provided by Hulu Plus or Amazon Video. Read More: Landmark Belgian Filmmaker Chantal Akerman Dies at 65 "News From Home" (1976) Letters from the filmmaker's mother are read over elegantly composed shots of New York, where our (unseen) protagonist has relocated. View on Hulu (subscription only) "La Chambre" (1972) A moving still life of a small apartment room. View on Hulu (subscription only) "Je tu il.
- 10/6/2015
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
So impressive was the output and so titanic was the presence of Chantal Akerman that news of her death, despite being about as current as any such notice could get, has already sent peals of shock, sadness, condolences, and tributes across the film world. How to come to terms with her absence? How to contextualize a force that’s absolutely unprecedented? Born to Auschwitz survivor Natalia Akerman — whose experiences would be a key influence on several efforts, including this year’s No Home Movie — she was, at only 15, inspired to enter the filmmaking fray after a viewing of Pierrot le Fou. Regardless of the extent to which Godard’s film feels like a siren for those who wish to think differently about the form, any influence is hard to comprehend when the art she would go on to create didn’t — still doesn’t; will never — feel like anyone’s predecessor or equal.
- 10/6/2015
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
From Catherine Grant comes word that Libération is reporting that Chantal Akerman has passed away at the age of 65. Akerman, who made an indelible mark on cinema with Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), followed up with such significant works as News from Home (1977), Golden Eighties (1986), From the East (1983) and La Captive (2000). Her most recent film, No Home Movie, premiered in Locarno and will screen tomorrow and Thursday at the New York Film Festival. We're collecting tributes and remembrances. » - David Hudson...
- 10/6/2015
- Keyframe
From Catherine Grant comes word that Libération is reporting that Chantal Akerman has passed away at the age of 65. Akerman, who made an indelible mark on cinema with Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), followed up with such significant works as News from Home (1977), Golden Eighties (1986), From the East (1983) and La Captive (2000). Her most recent film, No Home Movie, premiered in Locarno and will screen tomorrow and Thursday at the New York Film Festival. We're collecting tributes and remembrances. » - David Hudson...
- 10/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Going UNDERGROUNDEverybody and their dog, it seems, feels this off imperative to try to identify common themes in the handful of festival films they (we) (I) see in a given year. It's the Ghost of Hegel, I suppose, demanding that we make sense of our times by referring to some Zeitgeist. (Zeitgeist? Isn't this just as likely to Strand the FilmsWeLike in some oh-so-precious Music Box, to be unearthed years later by members of some as-yet-unassembled Cinema Guild? But I digress.) There may or may not be tendencies running through this year's feature selections, and if there are, that could have as much to do with the people who selected them than with any global mood. But there does seem to be a generalized turning-inward, with filmmakers making works about themselves and their immediate lives, the cinematic process, and the very complexities of communicating with other human beings. There are...
- 9/17/2015
- by Michael Sicinski
- MUBI
The inner turmoil of Chantal Akerman's new documentary, which premiered in the International Competition of the Locarno Film Festival, is clear from its paradoxical title. Brazenly called No Home Movie, it consisting almost entirely of footage of the great Belgian director's elderly mother in her home in Brussels. In this strict confinement, No Home Movie is shot digitally in a far more loose and imprecise technique than Akerman's film-films, but is still composed around the director's characteristic structural motifs of closed and open doors, windows, and other constricting frames within frames. With few external excursions (mysterious intercessions of footage of the Israeli desert, as well as Chantal, while traveling in anonymous hotel rooms, Skyping her mother), No Home Movie is a taut but patient observation of the emptying stillness of a home inhabited by someone getting older and sicker."Your camera, every time," her mother cluckingly, affectionately nags, when...
- 8/27/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The gods wish to scare me, I think, for clearly in anticipation of this evening when our flat in this small Swiss town gains not one, not two but three new roommates, my entire day turned out to be dedicated to the terrors, doubts, and sadnesses of living in confined homes.After Michael Cimino, the other Leopard of Honor the festival was bestowing this year is to another maverick of his nation, Italian master Marco Bellocchio. Bellocchio's latest film will premiere later this month in Venice, but Locarno has something just as good if not better: three 35mm prints from the director's last decade of work, plus a new restoration of 1965's I pugni ni tasca. The homage to the director has only just begun here, and is being led by 2003's Good Morning, Night, a rich, sequestered look at the political terror of Italy's Red Brigade in the 1970s...
- 8/12/2015
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
Hot Docs is on in Toronto through May 3, screening 210 documentaries, many of them world premieres, but more than a few classics as well: Chantal Akerman’s News from Home, Roger Graef's Pleasure at Her Majesty's, five films by Carole Laganière, another six by Patricio Guzmán and so on. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Hot Docs "has implemented strict security measures for next week's world premiere of U.S. gay Muslim director Parvez Sharma's latest film, A Sinner in Mecca." Sheri Linden calls David Shapiro's Missing People "intimate, gripping and sharply observed." Plus a clip from Søren Steen Jespersen and Nasib Farah's Warriors of the North, Vr and more. » - David Hudson...
- 4/25/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Hot Docs is on in Toronto through May 3, screening 210 documentaries, many of them world premieres, but more than a few classics as well: Chantal Akerman’s News from Home, Roger Graef's Pleasure at Her Majesty's, five films by Carole Laganière, another six by Patricio Guzmán and so on. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Hot Docs "has implemented strict security measures for next week's world premiere of U.S. gay Muslim director Parvez Sharma's latest film, A Sinner in Mecca." Sheri Linden calls David Shapiro's Missing People "intimate, gripping and sharply observed." Plus a clip from Søren Steen Jespersen and Nasib Farah's Warriors of the North, Vr and more. » - David Hudson...
- 4/25/2015
- Keyframe
Above: the 2015 Crossroads Film Festival kicks off on Friday, April 10th, and features Paul Clipson's Hypnosis Display with a live soundtrack by Grouper. Check out the rest of the amazing lineup here. Like everyone, we're devastated that David Lynch will not be directing the Twin Peaks revival season after all. Above: the latest issue of La Furia Umana is online now and includes an intriguing survey of "What's (Not) Cinema Becoming?"From the new issue of The Brooklyn Rail: pieces on Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God, J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry, and an interview with Xin Zhou.For Cinema Scope, Jordan Cronk writes on this year's True/False Film Festival. There are two incredible websites for you to browse from La Cinématheque Francaise: one on Pier Paolo Pasolini, and one on Michelangelo Antonioni. For his blog Following Film, Christoph Huber writes on "The Siodmak Variations":...
- 4/10/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Kiarostami Baffles and Electrifies with his own Brand of Tokyo Story
Having morphed into a predictably unpredictable filmmaker so far in the 21st century, the extent to which Abbas Kiarostami’s new film Like Someone in Love defies categorization is startling, if not invigorating. Filming once again in an unfamiliar setting – this time Tokyo – the Iranian master has manufactured an avant-garde love story that feels entirely alien within his filmography, not to mention most of contemporary world cinema. Closest in essence to Certified Copy‘s yearning grasps at soured romance, this new mysterious object could perhaps be called a copy of that film – discrepancies, blips, surprises and all. With a lulling, intermittently blissful pace that evolves into a depraved beast over its running time, Kiarostami has shown that his second life in the spotlight will not be short-lived.
The free-form plot (a term that feel all-together insufficient) is set in...
Having morphed into a predictably unpredictable filmmaker so far in the 21st century, the extent to which Abbas Kiarostami’s new film Like Someone in Love defies categorization is startling, if not invigorating. Filming once again in an unfamiliar setting – this time Tokyo – the Iranian master has manufactured an avant-garde love story that feels entirely alien within his filmography, not to mention most of contemporary world cinema. Closest in essence to Certified Copy‘s yearning grasps at soured romance, this new mysterious object could perhaps be called a copy of that film – discrepancies, blips, surprises and all. With a lulling, intermittently blissful pace that evolves into a depraved beast over its running time, Kiarostami has shown that his second life in the spotlight will not be short-lived.
The free-form plot (a term that feel all-together insufficient) is set in...
- 5/22/2012
- by Blake Williams
- IONCINEMA.com
Over the last few days I experienced a bout of homesickness—not personally but by proxy: an ode to New York (where I live now) by Chantal Akerman in 1977’s News from Home and an elegy for California (where I’m from) in Lee Ann Schmitt’s California Company Town, from 2008 and showing in the Viennale’s retrospective on the director.
It was particularly unreal to watch the Akerman film here in Vienna, filled with what could be b-roll from Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and actually more closely resembles a contemporary style of film criticism which seeks to find, in image captures and video essays, secretive side spaces, silences, voids and other evocative minimalist expressions in conventional narrative filmmaking.
The film is made up almost entirely of vacant or impersonally busy New York streets and intersections, a travelogue of a city late at night, or of the bystander in the wrong neighborhood,...
It was particularly unreal to watch the Akerman film here in Vienna, filled with what could be b-roll from Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and actually more closely resembles a contemporary style of film criticism which seeks to find, in image captures and video essays, secretive side spaces, silences, voids and other evocative minimalist expressions in conventional narrative filmmaking.
The film is made up almost entirely of vacant or impersonally busy New York streets and intersections, a travelogue of a city late at night, or of the bystander in the wrong neighborhood,...
- 10/27/2011
- MUBI
Single tickets for films showing at Tiff officially go on sale tomorrow and before you consider paying for an overpriced, over-hyped, red carpet Gala screening of a film that will be out in theatres week later, we suggest you mix it up a bit and consider the alternative. Joined by our own Toronto based critic Blake Williams (who is also presenting his latest short entitled Coorow-Latham Road in Wavelengths 4 this year), we've complied a 25-list of invigorating films from pioneering master filmmakers who still don't get enough cred to visionaries making their first contributions to cinema. We begin the countdown with..: #1. Almayers Folly Director: Chantal Akerman Cast: Stanislas Merhar, Marc Barbé, Aurora Marion, Zac Andrianasolo Distributor: Rights Available Buzz: Akerman is at once a key figure in structural filmmaking, 60's & 70's world cinema, and women's filmmaking in general. Producing some of the most contemplative and soaring masterpieces of the last few decades (Jeanne Dielman,...
- 9/2/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
People here are surprised. They say New York is terrible, inhumane. Perhaps they don’t really know it and are too quick to judge.
This past weekend’s anniversary observance of the 9/11 terrorist attacks led me to browse through my collection of Eclipse DVDs, wondering what would be an appropriate selection for this week’s column on such a solemn occasion? I considered a couple of titles from the Ingmar Bergman set: Crisis and Torment seemed like intriguing possibilities to at least match the mood of that terrible day. But I took a look at Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies and noticed a disc titled “The New York Films.” Though Washington DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania also bore the brunt of the carnage, it’s always the mental image of New York City, specifically lower Manhattan, that gets summoned up when I think about 9/11. So based on the rather tenuous connection,...
This past weekend’s anniversary observance of the 9/11 terrorist attacks led me to browse through my collection of Eclipse DVDs, wondering what would be an appropriate selection for this week’s column on such a solemn occasion? I considered a couple of titles from the Ingmar Bergman set: Crisis and Torment seemed like intriguing possibilities to at least match the mood of that terrible day. But I took a look at Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies and noticed a disc titled “The New York Films.” Though Washington DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania also bore the brunt of the carnage, it’s always the mental image of New York City, specifically lower Manhattan, that gets summoned up when I think about 9/11. So based on the rather tenuous connection,...
- 9/13/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
The Criterion Collection's recent releases of Chantal Akerman's early work have given me my first opportunity to see many of the films that established her reputation. The most lauded—Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975); Je, tu, il, elle (1976); and News from Home (1977)—more than live up to their reputations, but it's the feature film she made immediately after News, Les rendezvous d'Anna(1978), that has most piqued my curiosity. This post will be the first in an on-going series of brief essays that attempt to describe why a particular sequence or image generates an unexpected frisson in the viewer, or how a particular moment represents in concentrated form the larger formal or thematic interests of the film. Pedantry aside, Girish recently provoked a fair amount of discussion about the "small, striking moments" in films. That's what I'm after here. We'll see if it works.
The Image In Question
This...
The Image In Question
This...
- 7/6/2010
- MUBI
"Comparable in force and originality to Godard or Fassbinder," began the Village Voice's J. Hoberman about the hypnotic hyperrealism of a certain Belgian auteur, "Chantal Akerman is arguably the most important European director of her generation." On January 19, Criterion will release an inarguably vital Eclipse box set entitled Chantal Akerman in the Seventies, which will include "The New York Films" (La Chambre, Hotel Monterey and News From Home), her feature debut Je tu il Elle, and my personal favorite of the set—Les rendez-vous d'Anna:
Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinema’s most distinctive bodies of work—formally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made...
Over the past four decades, Belgian director Chantal Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles) has created one of cinema’s most distinctive bodies of work—formally daring, often autobiographical films about people and places, time and space. In this collection, we present the early films that put her on the map: intensely personal, modernist investigations of cities, history, family, and sexuality, made...
- 1/15/2010
- GreenCine Daily
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