Individual meeting - Jo huybrechts

Discussed artists:

Identity/places

Chantal Anne Akerman (born 6 June 1950) is a Belgian film director, artist, and professor of film at the European Graduate School. Akerman was born to an observant Jewish family in Brussels, Belgium. Her grandparents and her mother were sent to Auschwitz; only her mother came back. This is a very important factor in her personal experience, and her mother's anxiety is a recurrent theme in her filmography.

Chantal Ackerman 'D'est'

 

Chantal Akerman, D’est (1993)

documentary, 35mm, color, 107 min.

Landscape films

James Benning (born 1942 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American filmmaker. Working as an independent filmmaker, Benning's films focus on a sense of place, and are often built from long, unedited takes. He used to work in Chicago but in recent years has been based on the West Coast. 

James Benning '13 Lakes'

Experimental

Frans Zwartjes is a very peculiar, extraordinary filmmaker. His film all seem to exist completely disconnected from the real world. While one can assume this is at least partially due to the fact that he almost exclusively shoots interiors, the few times that his camera deviates into the outside world his unique lens still shows the world in utter disconnect. I spent a weekend watching 14 of his films (thirteen shorts and one feature), and at the end I felt like I had experienced the uncanny. Often times while viewing a Zwartjes film one gets the feeling that they're not supposed to be watching the film, that their act of viewing is transcending simple voyeurism and actually attaining violation. And this is why Zwartjes is amazing.

Frans Zwartjes 'Spectator'