Come and see one of the greatest New York films ever made... for free!
On Monday 5 October 2015, the world lost one its most remarkable film artists. The news of Chantal Akerman’s death sent melancholic ructions through the film community at large, as many were forced to accept that her most recent work – the brilliant and intimate No Home Movie – was to become her untimely swan song.
Some might say that Akerman was one of the great Belgian directors. They might say that she was one of the great female directors. They might even say she was one of the key innovators of a brand of fastidious, slow-moving art cinema which bridged a gap between the world of conceptual art and film. She was all of those things, but most of all she was one of the great directors, someone who knew how to use a camera to make a statement and create poetry.
The film she’s most widely know for is 1975’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a near four-hour feminist opus which mused on the lowly lot of the modern housewife while innovating as an example of objective cinematic portraiture. But she was never one to rest on her creative laurels, and that each film she made felt like starting from zero was inherent to the challenge. She made fiction films, documentaries, profiles of herself and others, TV serials, shorts, gallery exhibits, literary adaptations and even the odd musical.
LWLies and MUBI want to celebrate Akerman and her work, so we’ll be presenting two films – one screened live, the other streamed online – as part of our doubles series.
Akerman’s wonderful collage film offers a definitive portrait of New York City. Screening + Post screening remembrance of Akerman in which audience members will be invited to talk about what the director means to them.
Thursday 10 December, 7pm
71a Gallery, 71a Leonard Street, London [map]
Get your free ticket here
Night and Day (1991)
Akerman’s delicately rendered romantic drama set on the streets of Paris.
Screens on mubi.com from 10 December
Published 25 Nov 2015
Read part one of our countdown celebrating the greatest female artists in the film industry.
It’s possible for a movie to have a positive impact on society and the individual.
Bleak stats aside, women are making positive steps towards equality.
Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.
