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Picking up the thread of "News from Home", the film she made 15 years ago, in D’Est Chantal Akerman sets off on a journey from Eastern Germany to Moscow that begins in the summer and ends in the depths of winter. In the course of this subjective journey she films "everything that moves her" and conveys images and sounds without comment. Static shots with people moving across them alternate with sweeping shots of urban landscapes, people and faces that develop an almost hypnotic effect on the viewer. The steady, slow rhythm of the film leaves room for a leisurely approach underscored with the howling of the icy wind, the drone of the cars as well as music.
Chantal Akerman was born in Brussels in 1950 as the daughter of Jewish immigrants. She studied theatre studies in Paris and began making her own films after dropping out of her studies at the Belgian Film School after just a few months. Her stylistically distinctive work encompasses over 30 films, which fall somewhere between documentary and fiction and comedy and tragedy and are often influenced by the autobiographical. The Forum showed some of her earlier films, including Jeanne Dielman (1975) and News From Home (1977), as well as La-bàs (2007) more recently.
Production: Lieurac Productions, Paradise Films
Camera: Raimond Fromont, Bernard Delville
Format: 16mm, color
Running Time: 110 min.
Language: w/o dialogue
