News from Home

In the early 1970s, Chantal Akerman moved to New York, where she experienced what she called “the period that influenced her work the most.” Five years later, she returned to the Big Apple to create a documentary about the city, or more precisely, about her complex position within and towards it. Shots of New York are set to Akerman’s voice-over reading letters from her mother in Belgium. Although born and raised in Brussels, this was not “a home” to Akerman, and the letters reveal the director’s need to detach herself from her roots. In fact, Akerman’s film strives to demonstrate that home is not a physical place, but rather, the delicate bond between the daughter’s voice and her mother’s tongue.