No Home Movie | |
---|---|
Directed by | Chantal Akerman |
Written by | Chantal Akerman |
Produced by | Chantal Akerman Patrick Quinet Serge Zeitoun |
Starring | Chantal Akerman Natalia Akerman |
Cinematography | Chantal Akerman |
Edited by | Claire Atherton |
Production companies | Liaison Cinématographique Paradise Films |
Distributed by | Zeugma Films (France) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 115 minutes |
Countries | France Belgium |
Languages | French Spanish English |
No Home Movie is a French-Belgian 2015 documentary film directed by Chantal Akerman, focusing on conversations between the filmmaker and her mother just months before her mother's death. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival on 10 August 2015. It is Akerman's last film before she died by suicide. [1]
The documentary consists of conversations in person and over Skype between Akerman and her mother, Natalia, who was a survivor of Auschwitz. [2] Halfway through the film, Akerman cuts to a succession of traveling shots of a desert, which "cleave(s) the movie in two." [3]
Filming ran for several months. Her mother died shortly after filming ended, at the age of 86, in April 2014. Akerman edited around forty hours' worth of footage to 115 minutes; she used small handheld cameras and her BlackBerry to film. "I think if I knew I was going to do this, I wouldn’t have dared to do it," she said. [2] Akerman died on 5 October 2015 in Paris. Le Monde reported that she took her own life. [4]
The film premiered in the United States at the New York Film Festival on 7 October 2015, where it was described as "an extremely intimate film but also one of great formal precision and beauty, one of the rare works of art that is both personal and universal, and as much a masterpiece as her 1975 career-defining Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ." [5] One scene, in particular, where the two "sit at the kitchen table, eating potatoes that Ms. Akerman has prepared, telling her mother that even she, the peripatetic artist, has mastered a few domestic skills" is, one New York Times reviewer suggested, "a reference to a memorable potato-peeling scene" from Jeanne. [6]
Chantal Anne Akerman was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York.
Delphine Claire Beltiane Seyrig was a Lebanese-born French actress and film director. She came to prominence in Alain Resnais's 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad, and later acted in films by Chantal Akerman, Luis Buñuel, Marguerite Duras, Ulrike Ottinger, Francois Truffaut, and Fred Zinneman. She directed three films, including Sois belle et tais-toi (1981).
Jeanne Moreau was a French actress, singer, screenwriter, director, and socialite. She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française. Moreau began playing small roles in films in 1949, later achieving prominence with starring roles in Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows (1958), Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961), and François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962). Most prolific during the 1960s, Moreau continued to appear in films into her 80s. Orson Welles called her "the greatest actress in the world".
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Danielle Arbid is a French filmmaker of Lebanese origin who has been directing films since 1997.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is a 1975 film written and directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It was filmed over five weeks on location in Brussels, and financed through a $120,000 grant awarded by the Belgian government. Distinguished by its restrained pace, long takes, and static camerawork, the film is a slice-of-life depiction of a widowed housewife over the course of three days.
Malin Maria Akerman is a Swedish and American actress. She first appeared in smaller parts in both Canadian and American productions, including The Utopian Society (2003) and Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Following a main role on the HBO mockumentary series The Comeback (2005), Akerman co-starred in the commercially successful romantic comedies The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and 27 Dresses (2008). She gained wider recognition for her role as Silk Spectre II in the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, for which she received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
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Je Tu Il Elle is a 1974 French-Belgian film by the Belgian film director Chantal Akerman. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was selected to be shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016.
Tess is a 1979 drama film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, and Leigh Lawson. It is an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The screenplay was written by Gérard Brach, John Brownjohn, and Roman Polanski. The film received positive critical reviews upon release and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning three for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.
News from Home is a 1976 avant-garde documentary film directed by Chantal Akerman. The film consists of long takes of locations in New York City set to Akerman's voice-over as she reads letters that her mother sent her between 1971 and 1973 when Akerman lived in the city.
Down There is a 78-minute 2006 Belgian-French English- and French-language independent documentary art film directed by Chantal Akerman.
The Final Girls is a 2015 American comedy horror film directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson and written by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller. The film stars Taissa Farmiga and Malin Åkerman, with supporting performances from Adam DeVine, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Alexander Ludwig, and Nina Dobrev. The plot follows a group of high school students who are transported into a 1986 slasher film called Camp Bloodbath.
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Chantal Akerman.
Sonia Wieder-Atherton is a Franco-American classical cellist.
De l’autre côté is a 2002 independent documentary art film directed by Chantal Akerman.
Sud is a 71-minute 1999 Belgian-Finnish-French English-language independent documentary art film directed by Chantal Akerman.
Claire Atherton is a film editor. In 2019, she received the Vision Award Ticinomoda on the occasion of the 72nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival, becoming the first woman to receive the award.
Golden Eighties is a 1986 musical comedy film co-written and directed by Chantal Akerman. The film explores themes such as consumerism, feminism, and Jewish identity through the lens of a shopping mall.