Portrait d’une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 a Bruxelles

Akerman paints a French New Wave portrait of teen anxiety and flirtation in this affectionate, quasi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama.

On the precipice of the May 1968 protests, 15-year-old Michèle (Circé Lethem) drops out of school and heads to the cinema. There, she chances upon Paul (Julien Rassam), a young Frenchman who claims to be in Brussels to meet a lover. They kiss and wander the streets together – their shared air filled with big, youthful conversations about politics, philosophy and sexuality – before slipping between the sheets. Later on at a party, however, in a tender scene that throbs with the complexities of adolescent yearning, we meet the real object of Michèle’s affection: her friend Danielle (Joëlle Marlier).

Rarely screened and as yet unrestored, Chantal Akerman’s hour-long gem was commissioned by Arte for the French television series Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge (All the Boys and Girls of Their Age) – an enormously influential program that also included work by Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas and Patricia Mazuy, with each film required to include adolescent themes, pop music from the director’s own youth and a party scene. Though Akerman set her film in the late 60s, she refused to shoot it as a period piece, playfully allowing for anachronistic touches in the interiors and technology shown on screen.

“Searingly recalls the mingled ecstasies and bewilderments of youth, the sudden chill of loneliness in a crowd that is the curse and the pride of a sensitive, yearning soul.” – The New Yorker

2K Digitisation.

This film screens with the short J'ai faim, j'ai froid, and will be followed by a 30 min panel discussion featuring director Charlotte Wells (Aftersun), Critics Campus Mentor Philippa Hawker and MIFF Senior Programmer Kate Jinx discussing Chantal Akerman's influential work.