Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Director: Chantal Akerman
Country: Belgium, France

1975 | 201 min. | French
Subtitles: German

Cast_ Delphine Seyrig, Jan Decorte, Henri Storck Screenplay_ Chantal Akerman Camera_ Babette Mangolte Producer_ Evelyn Paul, Corinne Jénart, Marilyn Watelet Rights_ Arsenal - Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.

Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman is one of the most important films of the seventies, an epic everyday narrative whose influence is still felt today.

Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) lives a strictly middle-class life with her son in Brussels. Her everyday is extremely orderly: she cleans and tidies the apartment, makes coffee and peels potatoes, eats with her son and then does the dishes. Also the visits by predominantly older men – a source of income supplementary to her widow's pension – are perfectly integrated into her daily routine.

The plot of this Belgian-French co-production spans three days. Akerman's images are sparse and austere in composition; from the very beginning, they contain a threat, the feeling of an all-encompassing horror that by the third day Jeanne can no longer suppress. Jeanne Dielman is at once an epic portrait and a precise study of space and time. A milestone in the history of film.

Director

Chantal Akerman was born in Brussels in 1950 and died in Paris in 2015. She was a Belgian film director, scriptwriter and actress. She shaped the feminist cinema of her time and continues to do so today. Her most important films include Jeanne Dielman (1975), Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (1978) and A Couch in New York (1995).