East with Sonia Wieder-Atherton

East with Sonia Wieder-Atherton

2009 · 84 min · ★ 7.0 · Documentary, Music, TV Movie

Presented in 2 parts, this 83 minute piece documents Wieder-Atherton's idea to do a set of pieces from across central and eastern Europe, including Russia. Some weren't originally written for cello, but she had them transcribed. Some were songs for voices, which goes with Wieder-Atherton saying in an earlier film she made with Chantal Akerman that she aspires to play the cello in a way that it carries the specificity of emotion of the human voice. She explains at the beginning of both parts how she feels each country in the region has it's own personality expressed in its music, coming from its individual history and culture, but that each land in the area is also 'impregnated' as she puts it, by the others, so there are certain elements that run throughout.

Directed by Chantal Akerman

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

Cast

Sonia Wieder-Atherton Self
Christophe Mangou Self - Chef d'orchestre

Make it a double feature

2h 28m together

East with Sonia Wieder-Atherton

Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman

Both from Chantal Akerman.

More from Chantal AkermanSee all →

Franz Schubert's Last Three Piano Sonatas

Franz Schubert's Last Three Piano Sonatas · 1989

Franz Schubert's Last Three Piano Sonatas

MovieDocumentaryMusic

A portrait of pianist Alfred Brendel performing and analysing Franz Schubert's final three sonatas.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles · 1976

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

A lonely young widow lives with her son following an immutable order: while the boy is in school, she cares for their apartment, does chores, and receives clients in the afternoon.

Family Business

Family Business · 1984

Family Business

MovieComedyDrama

Chantal Akerman was commissioned by Visions to make this short film for £20,000. It was first shown on 21 November 1984, on Channel 4. Akerman herself plays the role of a director visiting Hollywood to find financing from an uncle she hardly knows. Very little goes to plan… Also stars Aurore Clement and Colleen Camp.

Letters Home

Letters Home · 1986

MovieTV MovieDrama

A filmed adaptation of Rose Leiman Goldemberg’s play, based on Sylvia Plath’s intense correspondence with her mother Aurelia, from the time the poet was in university until her suicide. Delphine Seyrig and her niece Coralie Seyrig recite Sylvia and Aurelia’s letters to the audience directly.

News from Home

News from Home · 1976

MovieDocumentary

Impersonal and beautiful images of Akerman's life in New York are combined with letters from her loving but manipulative mother, read by Akerman herself.

Moving In

Moving In · 1993

"A man stands amid unpacked boxes in his new home, delivering an extended monologue on indecision and dislocation. This rarely seen, overlooked gem created by Akerman for television explores the quotidian crises and profound feelings of alienation that run through her work." - BAM

The Meetings of Anna

The Meetings of Anna · 1978

The Meetings of Anna

Detached filmmaker Anna Silver arrives in Germany to show her latest film; over the course of some days, she encounters a variety of new and old faces, some of whom make personal revelations to her to little affect.

From the East

From the East · 1993

MovieDocumentary

In this incisive dispatch from the newly collapsed Soviet empire, bullet holes from WWII still pockmark the old stone buildings. Akerman journeys from East Germany to Moscow between the late summer and winter of 1993 ('while there’s still time'), chronicling in deliberate tracking shots, circular pans, and domestic tableaux yet another moment of radical upheaval in the 20th-century, the faces and bodies of Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and Russians weighed down with obedient resignation and uncertainty.

Lest We Forget

Lest We Forget · 1991

MovieDocumentaryDrama

A compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.

Toute une nuit

Toute une nuit · 1982

MovieDramaRomance

Following over two dozen different individuals in the almost wordless atmosphere of a dark night in a Brussels town, acceptance and rejection in the realm of romance is examined.

Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman

Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman · 1997

Chantal Akerman by Chantal Akerman

MovieDocumentary

Janine Bazin and André Labarthe approached Chantal Akerman about making a film for the series; eagerly, Akerman proposed a number of filmmakers—but all had already been done. So she suggested…“How about me?” Akerman creates a fascinating self-portrait that takes us through her career, aided by critics Emmanuel Burdeau and Jean Narboni and filmmaker Luc Moullet.

Je Tu Il Elle

Je Tu Il Elle · 1974

MovieDramaRomance

A woman suffers a subdued psychological breakdown in the wake of a devastating breakup.

Golden Eighties

Golden Eighties · 1986

Golden Eighties

MovieMusicComedy

In a lively shopping center, proprietors and customers are bustling, including three women vying for a man's heart with song and dance.

Portrait of a Lazy Woman

Portrait of a Lazy Woman · 1986

Portrait of a Lazy Woman

MovieComedyDocumentary

Belgian director Chantal Akerman struggles to overcome her laziness in the name of making a film about the subject.

Tell Me

Tell Me · 1980

MovieTV MovieDocumentary

Chantal Akerman meets with elderly Jewish women in Paris, all of them survivors of the Shoah, and listens to their family stories. Between interviews, Akerman's mother Natalia speaks of her own family. Made for a French miniseries on grandmothers.

A Couch in New York

A Couch in New York · 1996

A Couch in New York

MovieRomanceComedy

A burnt-out New York psychoanalyst exchanges apartments with a Parisian woman. When his patients arrive, they talk to her and then pay. He returns early and becomes a patient as well.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter