What Maisie Knew

Water Motor

A filmed record of a solo performance by American postmodern dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown. In order to better understand the dance, Mangolte learned to perform it herself. Mangolte shot Brown as she performed the solo twice, and then on the third take she decided to film in slow motion: "I shot slow motion, knowing that it would reveal the dance and the movement in a totally different context... the slow motion version permits a second look at the choreography, and the spectators can marvel at what they remember and also what they missed the first time around."

The Cold Eye (My Darling, Be Careful)

A “narrative” film centered on young artists living in New York City around 1979. The film is about a certain stage in the development of a young artist confronting the real world in terms of her own idealistic notions of what art is supposed to do. You never see her. She is the camera’s eye and when someone says to the camera “My darling be careful”, it could be addressing her or you the spectator. The subjective camera set-up challenges your position as an impartial observer. - BM

Visible Cities

Two women are in search of a home in the Southern California landscape. From the outside looking in, they see the single-family home as the locus of the exclusion of the other. It is also unaffordable. They both feel as if they are invisible citizens. They witness how the architectural landscape imposed on the California desert appears as a reversal of nature, where exclusive living, gated communities and segregation go hand in hand. They dream of escape.

(Now) or Maintenant Entre Parenthèses

With Linda Patton and James Barth Silent, (24 frames per second) A linear succession of activities/manipulations of objects. Film = Now Projected Film = (Now)

Winter

While working on a documentary about the city of Bruges, an artistically frustrated filmmaker must deal with the increasing difficulties in his marriage.

‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen

Various unrelated vignettes, often juxtaposing sound and image.

Summer

During the summer of 1968, a young French woman staying in an isolated country house reflects upon her involvement in the events of that May.

Hotel New York

A comedy about New York and its eccentric inhabitants. A French filmmaker comes to New York to show her film at MOMA. Fascinated by the city, she decides to stay.

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.

News from Home

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.

Routine Pleasures

Jean-Pierre Gorin interacts with a club of model railroad train enthusiasts and his mentor, artist/writer Manny Farber.

Strong Medicine

Adaptation of an avant-garde play about Rhoda, a hysterical heroine who feels oppressed by the people around her. She suffers through her birthday party, goes to see a doctor, plans a vacation, argues a lot and even breaks the fourth wall.

Hotel Monterey

New York City's Monterey is a residence hotel, whose inhabitants are older and primarily live alone. The camera, usually stationery, observes the lobby. No score, the lobby is clean with granite floors, men wear hats, people enter and exit an elevator, the camera looks out from within the elevator as doors open and close. People sit alone and motionless in their apartments. There are long shots of empty halls. Paint peels. The flooring on upper levels is linoleum. Hall lights are florescent. Doors open a crack then close.

The Gold Diggers

An avant-garde examination of the relationship between women and money in society. Mixing musical, silent melodrama, and philosophical treatise into a post-punk, heady brew.

La chambre

Furniture and clutter of one small apartment room become the subject of a moving still life—with Akerman herself staring back. This breakthrough formal experiment is Akerman's first film made in New York.

Cinématon

Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

La Maison en Petits Cubes

La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a grandfather's memories as he adds more blocks to his house to stem the flooding waters.