Chantal Akerman Collection: Volumes 1 and 2

[MichaelB]

Yes, don't ever treat the initial press release as gospel! For all sorts of reasons, they may not be able to mention certain titles that far in advance - all it takes is a last-minute delay in securing a contractual agreement. This is particularly true of extras.

[nicolas]

A member at the other forum wrote to BFI and they confirmed that Fidelity in Motion are handling this set!

[MichaelB]

Full specs announced for volume 1:

CHANTAL AKERMAN: VOLUME 1, 1967-1978

Limited Edition BFI Blu-ray (5-Disc box set) release on 24 February 2025

Central to the BFI’s celebration of Chantal Akerman, alongside a near complete retrospective at BFI Southbank; Chantal Akerman: Adventures in Perception, BFI Blu-ray are releasing a two volume limited edition Blu-Ray box set, representing the first significant release of Akerman’s work on any format in the UK. Chantal Akerman: Volume 1, 1967-1978, a 5-disc box set, features 14 landmark films spanning 11 years of Akerman’s filmography. Chantal Akerman: Volume 2, 1982-2015 will be released in June 2025.

Born in Brussels in 1950 to parents who had survived the Holocaust, Chantal Akerman directed more than 40 films (short, medium and feature-length) over 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 resonated with cinephiles globally and become increasingly relevant since her death in 2015, with filmmakers including Joanna Hogg (The Eternal Daughter), Céline Sciamma (Petite Maman), Alice Diop (Saint Omer), Sean Baker (Anora), Payal Kapadia (All We Imagine As Light) and Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), among others, citing her radical and experimental approach to cinema as a direct inspiration.

Although best known for her landmark second narrative 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.

The Films:

• INSAS Entrance exam films x 4 (1967)
• Saute ma ville (1968)
• L’Enfant aimé ou Je joue à être une Femme Mariée (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)

About the presentations:

The films have been restored by CINEMATEK (Royal Film Archive of Belgium), with the exception of Le 15/8, which was restored by L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. INSAS entrance exam films: original 8mm materials were transferred in High Definition and are presented at 16fps. Saute ma ville: the original 35mm negative which was scanned in 2K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from an optical soundtrack positive. L’Enfant aimé, ou Je joue à être une femme mariée: a 16mm duplicate positive was scanned in 2K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from the 16mm magnetic final mix. La Chambre and Hôtel Monterey: the 16mm reversal positives were scanned in 2K. Hanging Out Yonkers: this incomplete film with no sound was transferred in high definition from original 16mm materials. Le 15/8: a 16mm duplicate negative and positive print were scanned in 2K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from an optical soundtrack positive. Je tu il elle: the 35mm original camera negative was scanned in 2K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from a 35mm optical soundtrack positive. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles: the 35mm original camera negative was scanned in 4K and restored in 2K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from a 35mm sound negative and a 35mm positive print. News From Home: a 16mm duplicate positive was scanned in 2K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from the 16mm magnetic final mix. Les Rendez-vous d’Anna: the 35mm original camera negative was scanned in 4K. The original monoaural soundtrack was remastered from a 35mm optical soundtrack positive.

Special features

• Limited edition 5-disc set (2000 copies);
• 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, and on Jeanne Dielman by Simon Howell of the Akerman Year podcast;
• Audio commentary on Saute ma ville and Je tu il elle by So Mayer and Selina Robertson;
• Chantal Akerman 1976: An Interview (1976, 59 mins): the filmmaker discusses her early films with B Ruby Rich;
• Interview with cinematographer Babette Mangolte (32 mins);
• Entretien avec ma mère, Natalia Akerman (2007, 30 mins): Chantal Akerman talks to her mother, Natalia;
• Interview with actor Aurore Clement (18 mins);
• Leaving Home – New World Vision (2024, 14 mins): artist Sarah Wood meditates on News From Home in a newly commissioned video essay;
72 page Perfect-bound book with new essays by Lillian Crawford, Catherine Bray, Diana Cipriano, Justine Smith, Daniella Shreir, Pamela Hutchinson, Jerry White, Sarah Wood and Hannah Strong;
• Archive articles by Janet Bergstrom and Laura Mulvey.

Product details

RRP: £54.99 / Cat. no. BFIB1530/ 15

Belgium, France, West Germany | 1967-1978 | black and white, colour | 878 minutes | French and English language with English subtitles | original aspect ratios | BD50 x 5: 1080p, 24fps, LPCM 1.0 mono audio (48kHz/24-bit)

[andyli]

By comparison, Criterion's contents:

-Hanging Out Yonkers, an unfinished film from 1973 by Chantal Akerman
-Film-school tests by Akerman
-New program on Akerman featuring critic B. Ruby Rich
-New visual essay on Akerman featuring archival interviews
-Autour de “Jeanne Dielman,” a documentary made during the filming of Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, shot by actor Sami Frey and edited by Agnès Ravez and Akerman
-Interviews with Akerman, cinematographer Babette Mangolte, actors Aurore Clément and Delphine Seyrig, and Akerman’s mother, Natalia
-Appreciation by filmmaker Ira Sachs
-PLUS: An essay and notes on the films by critic Beatrice Loayza

Some exclusive contents on each label and some overlap. But overall I'd say BFI is the more attractive one (I count 5 newly produced commentary tracks!).

[MichaelB]

Common to both:

• Film-school tests by Akerman (I'm assuming, anyway)
• Hanging Out Yonkers
• Autour de Jeanne Dielman
...and I'm assuming the interviews with Aurore Clement, Babette Mangolte and Natalia Akerman are the same.

BFI exclusive:

• Two commentaries on Jeanne Dielman (Kate Rennebohm, Simon Howell)
• Commentary on Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Kate Rennebohm)
• Commentary on Saute ma ville (So Mayer, Selina Robertson)
• Commentary on Je tu il elle (So Mayer, Selina Robertson)
• Chantal Akerman 1976: An Interview (1976, 59 mins): the filmmaker discusses her early films with B Ruby Rich;
• Leaving Home – New World Vision (2024, 14 mins)
• New essays by Lillian Crawford, Catherine Bray, Diana Cipriano, Justine Smith, Daniella Shreir, Pamela Hutchinson, Jerry White, Sarah Wood and Hannah Strong;
• Archive articles by Janet Bergstrom and Laura Mulvey.

Criterion exclusive:

• New program on Akerman featuring critic B. Ruby Rich (unclear whether this is the same as the BFI equivalent)
• New visual essay on Akerman featuring archival interviews
• Appreciation by filmmaker Ira Sachs
• An essay and notes on the films by critic Beatrice Loayza

[Matt]

Not really a difficult choice to make between these options.

[ryannichols7]

love how the extras have been announced three different times and it only gets more and more impressive. truly no need for the Criterion..

[What A Disgrace]

Volume 2 announced, containing the following films:



Toute Une Nuit (1982)
Les Annees 80 (1983)
Golden Eighties (1986)
La Paresse (1986)
Histoires d'Amerique: Food, Family and Philosophy (1988)
D'Est (1993), Sud (1999)
La Captive (2000)
De l'Autre Côté (2002)
La Folie Almayer (2011)
No Home Movie (2015)


As well as a 72-page perfect-bound book with new essays by Erin Nunoda, Daniella Shreir, Rachel Pronger, Catherine Wheatley, and Alisa Lebow, the rest of the extras being TBC. Released June 16.

[GoodOldNeon]

Looks like I will be picking up the second volume for Les années 80, which is unfortunately not included in the Capricci set.

[senseabove]

I hope the Vol. 2 set went into production late enough to use the 2024 restoration of Golden Eighties, not the horribly teal-ified 2018 restoration.

[GaryC]

I should stress that this is total speculation on my part, but during the BFI Southbank retrospective, the "Les rendez-vous de Chantal Akerman" panel discussion and Laura Mulvey's introduction to the showing of the new 35mm print of Jeanne Dielman were both being filmed. So I wonder if at least the former might appear as an extra on Volume 2.

[MichaelB]

It should certainly end up online in some form.

[colinr0380]

We should also note here that the latest entry in Sight & Sound's "Auteurs Series" of collected special magazines is devoted to Chantal Akerman. Its also in the slightly larger sized format of the two "New Hollywood" and the two "Horror themed" specials rather than going back to the size of the Godard, Scorsese and Spike Lee volumes.

[senseabove]

Would love a copy of that, but it's £16.67 shipping to the US! Anyone know if it would be available to special order via US bookstores that stock S&S?

[Matt]

You might check with OrbitDVD. They carry books and might be able to get this since they carry BFI discs.

[senseabove]

OrbitDVD says the Akerman issue “was not offered to them,” fwiw. If anybody finds a US seller, please share!

[Gregor Samsa]

CineOutsider

[mhofmann]

With BFI's Volume 1, Akerman's earlier films finally have high-quality versions that are encoded properly (unlike the Criterion release) and accessible to an English-speaking audience (unlike the French Capricci box set).

That said, Hotel Monterey on the first disc has large sections that look like a bad VCD rip and in no way like soundly scanned & encoded 16mm film. I'm really not sure what happened there - but I can confirm that the other releases (Criterion & Capricci) are at least as bad in these sections, so it must be an issue with the master used.