Chantal Akerman Collection: Volumes 1 and 2

[MichaelB]

I might as well attach the entire press release, as UK-based readers may well be interested in the touring programme and BFI Player offerings:

Chantal Akerman

• Major film retrospective at BFI Southbank, February-March 2025
• BFI Distribution re-release of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, in UK cinemas, 7 February 2025
• UK cinema touring package of Akerman titles including Je tu il elle (1974), News from Home (1976), Golden Eighties (1986), and La Captive (2000), at partner venues including Ciné Lumière, ICA and Glasgow Film Theatre
• BFI Blu-ray two volume collector’s edition, Chantal Akerman Collection Volume 1: 1967-1978, released on 24 February 2025, Chantal Akerman Collection Volume 2: 1982-2015 on 16 June 2025, Many films available for the first time on any format in the UK.
• Curated BFI Player Subscription collection coinciding with the Chantal Akerman BFI Southbank season

Born in Brussels in 1950 and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Chantal Akerman directed more than forty films (short, medium, and feature-length) in almost 50 years, spanning fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation. Today she is regarded as one of cinema’s most important and influential directors of her generation. Chantal Akerman’s personal, non-conformist body of work has become increasingly relevant since her death in 2015, resonating with cinephiles globally as well as filmmakers including Joanna Hogg (The Eternal Daughter), Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine as Light), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Sean Baker (Anora), Alice Diop (Saint Omer), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) and Charlotte Wells (Aftersun) citing her radical and experimental approach to filmmaking as a direct inspiration.

Although best known for her landmark second feature, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which topped the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll in 2022 (becoming the first female-directed film to take the number one spot since the poll’s inception in 1952), Akerman never stopped rebelling, continuously experimenting throughout her career to challenge the formal and narrative boundaries of film. In February 2025 the BFI celebrates Akerman’s extraordinary impact on contemporary cinema with a (near) complete major two-month retrospective season at BFI Southbank, encompassing fiction features, documentaries, shorts and archive interviews, a BFI Distribution UK-wide cinema release of a 2K restoration of Jeanne Dielman (7 February) as well as a UK touring cinema package of her key films and curated BFI Player Subscription collection coinciding with the Chantal Akerman BFI Southbank season.

BFI Blu-ray will also release a two-volume collector’s edition of her work, with Chantal Akerman Collection Volume 1: 1967-1978 released 24 February and Chantal Akerman Collection Volume 2: 1982-2015 due for release on 16 June, with many films available for the first time on any format in the UK.

Isabel Stevens, Managing Editor at Sight and Sound and BFI retrospective curator said: “In Chantal Akerman’s first short film, the darkly comic Saute ma ville, she barricades herself in her kitchen and sets about exploding it. That’s exactly what she did to cinema throughout her career: blow it up. Her films about women, domestic spaces, anxiety, loneliness and displacement, broke the rules of film form and language, fundamentally shifted our concept of what constitutes epic cinema, and, with her mostly female crews, our understanding of who could make films. She always had a surprise up her sleeve. She was a restless, uncompromising experimenter, as comfortable working with melodrama and musicals as she was with minimalism. Her radical feature Jeanne Dielman is only one slice of her story. To adapt a quote from Laura Mulvey, in cinema history, there’s a before and an after Chantal Akerman.”

The Fondation Chantal Akerman at CINEMATEK added: "We at the Chantal Akerman Foundation are very honoured and excited that the BFI will celebrate Chantal Akerman's work and genius next year by making her films and restorations available (many for the first time) in the UK and Ireland. It's important to us that Chantal Akerman's work can continue to touch people around the world, and we thank the BFI for helping to make that happen."

Chantal Akerman’s singular films smashed the status quo, navigating between genres and between fiction and non-fiction. She showed incredible range, making comedies like Golden Eighties (1986) and A Couch in New York (1996) and literary adaptations including La Captive (2000) and Almayer's Folly (2011), as well as documentaries, including the trilogy D’Est (1993), South (1999) and From the Other Side (2002). Her work changed perceptions of which subjects and stories were worthy of being filmed, as well as the style in which a film could be made, not to mention who could make them.

Ahead of her time, Akerman’s observations of the everyday, reframing how we look at domestic spaces and women’s experience, her resistance to formal boundaries, what to shoot and how to shoot it, challenging the viewer’s perspective of space and time and subversion of cultural conventions continue to resonate with modern audiences, critics and academics. Reflections that run through her films tap into wider discussions about gender representation and diversity, identity, belonging, feminism, gender, sexuality as well as themes of migration, displacement, exile, memory and generational trauma.

What continues to make Akerman’s films so relevant today is that they are so personal. Akerman made so many films inspired by her own life, like Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978), and indeed often turned her camera on herself, acting in her owns films such as Je tu il elle (1974), as well as making herself the subject, Chantal Akerman par Chantal Akerman (1997), the confessional style exploring the artist’s inner world, personality traits and preoccupations with melancholic reflection.

Chantal Akerman joined the Brussels film school (INSAS) in 1967, but immediately left, rejecting the school’s rigid framework. At 18, she made her first short film Saute ma ville (1968) before moving to Paris and then to New York, where she joined the world of underground and experimental film, discovering first-hand the films of Michael Snow, Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol. It was also the city in which she made La Chambre (1972), Hôtel Monterey (1972), Hanging Out Yonkers (1973) and News from Home (1976) (now available in a 2K restoration). Returning to Europe she made her first feature film Je tu il elle (1974).

A cornerstone of feminist cinema, her second feature Jeanne Dielman was presented at the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 1975, bringing the 24-year-old Akerman international recognition. Whilst a central touchstone for the BFI Southbank retrospective and UK-wide cinema release on 7 February, the BFI celebration offers audiences an opportunity to go beyond Jeanne Dielman and discover more about Akerman’s unwavering and uncompromising radical approach to cinema across her career.

Arranged by theme, the BFI Southbank season will explore Akerman’s filmography via different subjects that were important to her: Self-portraits - making cinema personal and questioning what cinema is and how to make it (Saute ma ville (1968), Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978), Les Années 80 (1983), Akerman par Chantal Akerman (1997)); Mothers – Akerman had an intense relationship with her mother, she explored this in both her non-fiction and the recurring motif of mother/daughter relationships in her fiction films (L'enfant aime ou je joue... (1971), Jeanne Dielman (1975), News from Home (1976), No Home Movie (2015)); Exile and Dislocation - exploring identity and belonging (Hôtel Monterey (1972), Le 15/8 (1973), Histoires d' Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy (1988)); Romance and Desire – including groundbreaking examples of Lesbian sex on screen (Je tu il elle (1974), All Night Long (1982), Golden Eighties (1986), A Couch in New York (1996)); Confinement and Wandering - turning the gaze outwards to explore the situation of immigrants (D’Est (1993), South (1999), From the Other Side (2002), Hanging Out Yonkers (1973)) and Portraits of Artists – including documentaries on Sylvia Plath and Pina Bausch.

These themes help foster a deeper connection with the filmmaker, her interests and preoccupations, and an understanding of her films. From 1995 Akerman created video installations intertwining the worlds of film and contemporary art. Her last film No Home Movie (2015) was completed just before her death.

Akerman’s work has recently been celebrated in Brussels with CINEMATEK’s comprehensive retrospective and curated exhibition at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts, currently on tour at Jeu de Paume in Paris. An Akerman retrospective at the ICA curated by Joanna Hogg and Adam Roberts as ’A Nos Amours’ (2013-2015), helped bring more public and critical attention to her work, however Chantal Akerman's work has never been widely accessible in the UK until now. A selection of titles including Je tu il elle (1974), News from Home (1976), Golden Eighties (1986), and La Captive (2000) will tour UK cinemas, with partner venues including Ciné Lumière, ICA and Glasgow Film Theatre.

BFI Blu-ray’s five disc collector’s set, Chantal Akerman Collection: Volume 1 - 1967 - 1978 is released on 24 February and includes, Akerman - Examen d’entree INSAS x 4 (1967), Saute ma ville (1968), L'enfant aime ou je joue... (1971), Hôtel Monterey (1972), La Chambre (1972), Hanging Out Yonkers (1973), Le 15/8 (1973), Je tu il elle (1974), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), News from Home (1976), Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978) + 4 extras: Author of Jeanne Dielman, interviews with Babette Mangolte (cinematographer), Natalia Akerman (Chantal Akerman’s mother) and Aurore Clement (actor).

Chantal Akerman Collection: Volume 2 - 1982 – 2015, released on 16 June, will include All Night Long (1982), Les Années 80 (1983), Golden Eighties (1986), Sloth (in Seven Women, Seven Sins) (1986), Histoires d' Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy (1988), D’Est (1993), South (1999), La Captive (2000), From the Other Side (2002), Almayer’s Folly (2011), No Home Movie (2015). In addition, a curated BFI Player Subscription collection will coincide with the Chantal Akerman BFI Southbank season.

BFI Distribution acquired rights for the Chantal Akerman film collection from the Fondation Chantal Akerman in partnership with the Royal Film Archive of Belgium (CINEMATEK). Almost all of the feature films have been restored including Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978) in 4K and Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) in 2K by CINEMATEK.

[hearthesilence]

Glad I held off on Icarus's DVD-only set.

[ryannichols7]

what, no A Couch in New York?

can't wait to see these get the real treatment they deserve

[MichaelB]

I wouldn't necessarily assume at this stage that these are full specs, particularly in the case of volume 2. I'll post those when they're made available.

(I've just had a flashback to someone who wrote a one-star Amazon "review" of the second Derek Jarman set - the only one that appeared pre-release, with all that that implies - because it left out Edward II. In actual fact, they always intended to include it, and ultimately did, but it wasn't mentioned at the time of the original announcement because there were a couple of contractual Is and Ts that needed to be dotted and crossed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't a voodoo effigy of that Amazon "reviewer" up in the BFI offices, with visitors encouraged to stab it with sharp implements - because thanks to his idiocy, the overall Amazon rating was just one star right up to release date and well beyond.)

[Peacock]

Incredible announcement. Well done BFI. Glad I didn’t pick up the Criterion set.

[Calvin]

I did pick up the Criterion set but it looks like the BFI have helpfully (and, perhaps, deliberately) chosen the same cut off for Volume 1 so I can pick up BFI's Volume 2 without worrying about double dipping. It's so frustrating that Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles is still unreleasable.

[beamish14]

what, no A Couch in New York?

can't wait to see these get the real treatment they deserve

I would love that in HD, but it’s been in some kind of rights quagmire for years

[senseabove]

The real question is, why no Toute Une Nuit?

[What A Disgrace]

The real question is, why no Toute Une Nuit?

That film is included in the blurb, under the title All Night Long.

[therewillbeblus]

I did pick up the Criterion set but it looks like the BFI have helpfully (and, perhaps, deliberately) chosen the same cut off for Volume 1 so I can pick up BFI's Volume 2 without worrying about double dipping. It's so frustrating that Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles is still unreleasable.

Yes, props to BFI for this (I wish more labels would be so considerate), and I share your frustration - that's my favorite Akerman by a longshot

[senseabove]

That film is included in the blurb, under the title All Night Long.

Oh! I don't think I've ever seen it billed under an English title before.

[mhofmann]

At first glance, it looks like this two-volume set contains a lot less than the French "Chantal Akerman - Les Années 1970-1980-1990-2000" set. I was hoping for these to be equivalent, so that double dipping wouldn't be necessary.

[ryannichols7]

I wouldn't necessarily assume at this stage that these are full specs, particularly in the case of volume 2. I'll post those when they're made available.

(I've just had a flashback to someone who wrote a one-star Amazon "review" of the second Derek Jarman set - the only one that appeared pre-release, with all that that implies - because it left out Edward II. In actual fact, they always intended to include it, and ultimately did, but it wasn't mentioned at the time of the original announcement because there were a couple of contractual Is and Ts that needed to be dotted and crossed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't a voodoo effigy of that Amazon "reviewer" up in the BFI offices, with visitors encouraged to stab it with sharp implements - because thanks to his idiocy, the overall Amazon rating was just one star right up to release date and well beyond.)

volume 2 definitely seems to be pretty ambigous with its listing, I'll be curious to see what they track down for it

also will be a little surprised if Volume 1 only has the four extras. Criterion dropped the ball with their set overall but the Jeanne Dielman extras remain really good. either way, very glad I held off on CC and will go for the BFI editions

[nicolas]

I wouldn't necessarily assume at this stage that these are full specs, particularly in the case of volume 2. I'll post those when they're made available.

(I've just had a flashback to someone who wrote a one-star Amazon "review" of the second Derek Jarman set - the only one that appeared pre-release, with all that that implies - because it left out Edward II. In actual fact, they always intended to include it, and ultimately did, but it wasn't mentioned at the time of the original announcement because there were a couple of contractual Is and Ts that needed to be dotted and crossed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't a voodoo effigy of that Amazon "reviewer" up in the BFI offices, with visitors encouraged to stab it with sharp implements - because thanks to his idiocy, the overall Amazon rating was just one star right up to release date and well beyond.)

volume 2 definitely seems to be pretty ambigous with its listing, I'll be curious to see what they track down for it

also will be a little surprised if Volume 1 only has the four extras. Criterion dropped the ball with their set overall but the Jeanne Dielman extras remain really good. either way, very glad I held off on CC and will go for the BFI editions

Same over here but primarily due to Criterion's atrocious encoding. Even BFI's volume one will have two more discs than Criterion's entire set. It'll surely be a night and day difference. Hopefully BFI are hiring the right company to take care of tasks like this.

[ryannichols7]

Same over here but primarily due to Criterion's atrocious encoding. Even BFI's volume one will have two more discs than Criterion's entire set. It'll surely be a night and day difference. Hopefully BFI are hiring the right company to take care of tasks like this.

yeah, I genuinely feel like every time Criterion is tasked with larger sets with multiple films on discs, their worst technical tendencies come out. Dekalog and Shoah are two big examples of this - I understand they're trying to cost save since they produce more product but it's plainly obvious when you stack the UK sets against theirs that there's some real issues

[spectre]

Will definitely be getting Volume 2 for Golden Eighties (included in the '80s volume of the Capricci box set but apparently without English subtitles) and The Eighties alone, as well as the documentaries, but still hoping that they can find a way to include A Couch in New York and a decent selection of shorts. Given they were also left off the Capricci set, I'm guessing there's no hope of Night and Day or Portrait of a Young Girl in Brussels appearing.

Otherwise, looks like anyone who bought the recent Criterion box set can safely pass on Volume 1.

[sidetracked]

Any word on the quality of the French box set? Any improvement on the Criterion encoding? It looks like it may have more than the BFI sets, some of the films have English subs, and English subs for most of the others are also floating around and can be added... Don't want to wait for the BFI and miss out on the Capricci if the PQ/AQ are high...

[Calvin]

Will definitely be getting Volume 2 for Golden Eighties (included in the '80s volume of the Capricci box set but apparently without English subtitles) and The Eighties alone, as well as the documentaries, but still hoping that they can find a way to include A Couch in New York and a decent selection of shorts. Given they were also left off the Capricci set, I'm guessing there's no hope of Night and Day or Portrait of a Young Girl in Brussels appearing.

Otherwise, looks like anyone who bought the recent Criterion box set can safely pass on Volume 1.

I have no idea why Night and Day has been absent but Portrait seems to be unreleasable due to music rights issues. The same afflicted Olivier Assayas' Cold Water, which was part of the same project, but it seems that whoever stumped up the cash for that one didn't do the same for other works made under the Tous les garcons et les filles de leur âge banner which, as well as Akerman's film, includes Claire Denis' US Go Home and Patricia Mazuy's Travolta et moi.

[Peacock]

Thanks for the intel Calvin, I always wondered what the issue was with releasing the Denis.

[MichaelB]

Music rights for broadcast and music rights for commercial release are a very different prospect financially. The Hugh Cornwell music video was the single most expensive item in the BFI's Jan Švankmajer shorts compilation by some distance, and they might well have baulked at underwriting it if I hadn't put forward the argument that it was the price of being able to legitimately put "complete" on the front of the box. But I'm not surprised that it was left out of other Švankmajer surveys.

[GaryC]

The 1984 twelve-minute short J'ai faim, j'ai froid, which was part of the anthology film Paris vu par...vingt ans après and isn't listed as being included in the sets above, is free to watch for a week at Le Cinéma Club, starting today.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I'm pretty sure A Couch in New York is with Canal and wouldn't have been part of the library licensed from the Fondation/Cinematek. Cinematek hasn't restored it either, though there is an HD master that was used in the Capricci box. I'm more surprised that Demain on déménage isn't included, since that has been restored by Cinematek and I don't see any obvious rights snags—it's never had a UK distributor and the original rightsholder seems to have been Gemini Films, Paulo Branco's defunct company that also produced La captive. But obviously there's something going on with that one.

[Red Screamer]

The 1984 twelve-minute short J'ai faim, j'ai froid, which was part of the anthology film Paris vu par...vingt ans après and isn't listed as being included in the sets above, is free to watch for a week at Le Cinéma Club, starting today.

This is great! It has a unique, warm comic rhythm.

[yoloswegmaster]

Chantal Akerman Collection: Vol 1 – 1987 – 1978 (Limited Edition 5 x Blu-ray)
Director: Chantal Akerman

Born in Brussels in 1950 and the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Chantal Akerman directed more than 40 films (short, medium, and feature-length) in almost 50 years, spanning fiction, documentary, musical comedy and literary adaptation. Today she is regarded as one of the most important and influential directors of her generation.

Akerman’s personal, non-conformist body of work has become increasingly relevant since her death in 2015, resonating with cinephiles globally as well as filmmakers including Joanna Hogg (The Eternal Daughter), Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine as Light), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Sean Baker (Anora), Alice Diop (Saint Omer) Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) and Charlotte Wells (Aftersun) citing her radical and experimental approach to filmmaking as a direct inspiration.

Representing the first significant release of Chantal Akerman’s work in the UK, this 5-disc set spanning 11 years includes her most famous film, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which topped the Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time Poll in 2022.

The Films
Examen d’entree INSAS x 4 (1967), Saute ma ville (1968), L’enfant aime ou je joue… (1971), Hôtel Monterey (1972), La Chambre (1972), Hanging Out Yonkers (1973), Le 1⅝ (1973), Je tu il elle (1974), Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), News from Home (1976), and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)

Extras

Limited edition 5-disc set
Autour de Jeanne Dielman (68 mins): documentary by Sami Frey, and co-edited by Akerman, which explores the on-set relationships between Akerman, Delphine Seyrig and the crew
Audio commentaries on Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna by Kate Rennebohm
Audio commentary on Je tu il elle by So Mayer and Selina Robertson
Interview with cinematographer Babette Mangolte (32 mins)
Interview with Natalia Akerman (28 mins)
Interview with actor Aurore Clement (18 mins)
Video essay by Sarah Wood looking at the early films of Chantal Akerman (2024)
Perfect-bound book with new essays by Catherine Bray, Justine Smith, Gerald White, Sarah Wood and Hannah Strong

[ryannichols7]

the extras ended up being more comprehensive than the initial press release seemed to mention, it seems. can't wait!