Blow Up My Town

xx ENCOUNTER WITH CHANTAL AKERMAN

Belgium / 1968 / 13'
Film

This short film that Chantal Akerman made at the age of 18, six years before the release of her masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, anticipates themes and strategies that she tackled and interpreted throughout her filmmaking career. Tragicomic and oppressive and simultaneously a near burlesque series of frenzied and increasingly bizarre household tasks offers identification with a woman (Akerman herself starring) whose place is at home – the film takes place in the kitchen as the centre of this universe – and screams in rebellion against oppressive boredom and compulsory seclusion, which is inherently selfdestructive. 

“You see an adolescent girl, 18 years old, go into a kitchen,
do ordinary things but in a way that is off-kilter, and finally commit suicide.
The opposite of Jeanne Dielman: Jeanne, that was resignation.
Here, it is rage and death.”
- Chantal Akerman

In French with English subtitles..

Tickets: € 4 (screening with Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles)

Organisation: Slovenian Cinematheque and City of Women.
The screenings were made possible by Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, for which we are most grateful.