“…an audacious, brilliant reinvention of what a movie can be.”
Each September we participate in two great events, Scalarama, which this year celebrates its 10th birthday and the annual Directed By Women worldwide film viewing party.
This year, our contributions are News From Home and Greta Gerwig’s little-seen (co) directorial debut Nights and Weekends (2008).
Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman moved to New York City in 1971, aged 21, where she made films, did low-wage work and befriended Jonas Mekas and others who were part of the city’s avant-garde cinema scene.
Made after the success of Akerman’s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, News From Home revisits her New York haunts, via letters from the director’s mother read over a series of elegantly composed shots of the city. In the words of the Criterion Collection, this “unforgettable time capsule is also a gorgeous meditation on urban alienation and personal and familial disconnection”.
