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.