A double tribute to the filmmaker Chantal Akerman through an exhibition and a retrospective

Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, who died in 2015, is in the spotlight with an exhibition presented at Jeu de Paume and a retrospective of her films restored in several cinemas in Paris.

At the crossroads of the seventh art, conceptual art and writing, this director, born in 1950, was a figure in the renewal of cinema in the 1970s, a factor of modernity. Independent, self-taught and traveler, she is often considered a pioneer of feminism, something she defended herself against, notably after the success of her film’s return to theaters last year. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Brussels.

This film, made in 1975 with Delphine Seyrig in the title role, evokes with contemplation and insight the daily life of a middle-aged woman of her time, where a scene around the peeling of potatoes remained in the annals, with a tension mixed with seduction which announces a tragic end. The British Film Institute ranked it at the top of its latest ten-year list of the best films of all time. In Brussels, a mural has also paid tribute to her since September 2023 on the Quai du Commerce, where the film was shot and whose sidewalk has been named Allée Chantal Akerman.

The production company Capricci presents a retrospective of 16 of its restored films in several Parisian theaters, from I you he she in 1974 at No Home Movie in 2015, the first of such magnitude in France.

The Jeu de Paume Art Center, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, is offering an exhibition, Travelingdesigned by the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels (Bozar), the Chantal Akerman Foundation and Cinetek. It presents a selection of video installations and archives, as well as several of his films. Readings, performances and meetings are also scheduled.

In just over 40 years, Chantal Akerman has composed a work presented in all the major film festivals, which travels from Brussels to New York, from Eastern Europe to Paris, from the most banal kitchens and bedrooms to Mexican desert, inspired by autofiction before exploring the otherness of the world (From the East, On the other side).

His registers range from musical comedy (Golden Eighties) to literary drama (The captive, The Almayer Madness) through family comedy (Tomorrow we move) and romantic (A couch in New York), the sentimental drama (All night) or theatricality (Letters home, Stories of America).

With recurring obsessions: the Shoah, Jewish identity, sexuality and femininity, exile, passion in an unstable environment, suffering from manic-depressive disorders, she ended her life in 2015 at the age 65 years old.