Akermania: shorter works by Chantal Akerman [NTSC]

Chantal Akerman, one of contemporary cinema’s singular filmmakers, is the director of these three engaging short films about women finding their way in the world. “I’m hungry, I’m cold”: Two young Belgian girls run away from home in Brussels. They spend a day and an evening looking for food and love, with comic and poignant results. Stars Maria de Medeiros. “Blow up my town”: A young woman (Akerman) comes home to her apartment in Brussels where she cooks pasta and seals herself in with duct tape. An amusing and wonderfully observational piece, evocative of early Buster Keaton work with its virtually dialogue-less track, Akerman’s first film was made at the age of 18. “Hotel Monterey”: A stark and silent look at a New York pension hotel, Akerman roams the corridors, stairwells, lifts and crammed apartments of the dwelling, looking for signs of life, human interaction and connections between the inhabitants. This experimental piece, reminiscent of the 1970s work of Andy Warhol, is considered in many ways a non-narrative study for “Jeanne Dielman” Akerman’s iconic 1975 feminist, experimental feature.