From the East

In her 1993 documentary, Chantal Akerman journeys through post-Cold War Eastern Europe, and bids farewell to a changing world. From East Germany to Poland and Russia—slow camera movements linger as they record people standing in line, walking in the street, or sitting at a train depot. Akerman looks straight at the people she films, and they mostly look back, thereby establishing a fascinating sequence of gazes. “I wanted to travel through Eastern Europe while it still existed. I wanted to film these places in my own personal style that borders on the fictional. I was interested in countries that had shared a common history since WWII and were now undergoing vast changes and parting ways.”