All the Boys and Girls of Their Time

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.

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.

From the Other Side is a haunting and minimalist documentary that explores the tragic realities of illegal immigration along the U.S.–Mexico border, focusing on the twin towns of Agua Prieta, Sonora, and Douglas, Arizona. Director Chantal Akerman utilizes her signature long, observational takes and static shots to capture the harsh desert landscape and the architectural starkness of the border wall. Through deeply personal interviews with Mexican migrants and grieving families, contrasted against the high-tech tracking systems and perspectives of white American ranchers, the film highlights how tightened border security forced migrants into increasingly perilous terrain. Ultimately, the documentary serves as a poetic, empathetic, and politically charged meditation on xenophobia, separation, and the human cost of geographic boundaries.

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.

"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

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.

The main character, Michèle, spends the hour discussing her views of life with some old and new friends, and tries to understand her own feelings about her place in the world and her sexuality, while a camera follows along at close range.

Several young men and women arrive one after the other at Hôtel des Acacias, full of hope, desire and vitality. In the bustle of this hotel, everyone is looking for love. Hôtel des Acacias was an exercise guided in 1982 by Chantal Akerman at Belgium’s INSAS audio-visual college.

A filmmaker’s self-portrait, asking hard questions of herself and of us. Invoking Aurore Clément as a kind of stand-in or proxy, a glamorous counterpart to Akerman who sports a drawn-on moustache. What is cinema for? Who is it for? If the Mosaic prohibition on making graven images includes film images, then where does that leave a Jewish filmmaker?

In 1940s Malaysia, European merchant Kaspar Almayer is obsessed with finding a treasure to secure his daughter's future. His dreams fall victim to the pressure of his own greed, which becomes a torment. Compounding this is the oppressive English domination dominating the country – and that which brings ruin to the remote village where he lives.

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.

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.

In this unfinished work, a young mother, her little girl, as well as a friend of the mother's, spend the summer in a villa. The mother shares her problems – womanhood, motherhood, being married - with her friend, dresses up with the little girl, observes her body, and does a series of household tasks.

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

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

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