D’Est

Impossible words, a mutism in the face of a collapsing world. Bodies, faces, gestures which Akerman films in almost liquid movements. Ghost-like figures of a sacrificed Soviet Union. Of what Communism could have been, of what it could be. Chantal Akerman explained that in her films the movement she followed was different from that of directors making political films. ‘They have a skeleton, an idea that they then flesh out. As for me, I first have the flesh, the skeleton appears later.’ I’m a girl. Girls have heroines. Guardian angels who watch over us. For me, Akerman is one of those women. Those who give you the strength to act, perservere, believe: In the politics of life, cinema or love, because it is the same thing. (Valérie Massadian)