Souvenirs de Chantal

This tribute to the work and legacy of Belgian filmmaker, writer, and installation artist Chantal Akerman, by a scholar of her work who also knew the filmmaker, is written in short paragraphs beginning with the phrase “I remember,” each recounted memory leading into the next. The format is derived from writer Georges Perec, and the essay connects these artists through their experiences as Holocaust survivors or children of survivors. Touching on Akerman’s Jewish heritage, her early success with the film Jeanne Dielman: 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Belgium/France, 1975), and the particularities of films from News from Home (France/Belgium, 1976) to Almayer’s Folly (France/Belgium, 2011), the piece finds Akerman’s memory as much in vivid quotidian images as in her indelible artistic contributions.