NEW YORK, NY.- MoMA’s complete retrospective of Chantal Akerman’s work for the cinema, comprising more than 40 features and rarely screened short films in new digital preservations, celebrates a multiyear effort by the Foundation Chantal Akerman and the Cinematek Brussels to restore, document, and exhibit her career in film, installation, and writing. International audiences hungering to discover more about Akerman (b. Belgium, 1950–2015) in the wake of her death have been rewarded with unprecedented access to her moving-image and paper archives.

In addition to her feature films, all recently restored—from Je, tu, il, elle (1974), News from Home (1977), Golden Eighties (1986), D’Est (1993), and Almayer’s Folly (2011) to her venerated Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)—MoMA’s retrospective also offers a renewed appreciation of her work in the short film form, including the four 8mm studies she made in the summer of 1967 as part of her entrance exams to the Brussels film school INSAS; her collaborations with the German choreographer Pina Bausch, the Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel, the French cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, and the actors Aurore Clément, Catherine Deneuve, and Sami Frey; and her searching portraits of teenagers in Yonkers, nightfall over Shanghai, and a group of elderly Jewish women who survived the Holocaust (including, of course, her mother Natalia).

On September 9, 2025, as part of Crossing the Line Festival and in collaboration with MoMA, L’Alliance New York presents the New York premiere of D’Est en musique, a live performance with Sonia Wieder-Atherton, at their Florence Gould Theater.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Curator, with Olivia Priedite, Film Program Coordinator, and Irene Rihueta Varea, Intern, Department of Film. Thanks to Sylviane Akerman and the Foundation Chantal Akerman, Cinematek Brussels, Janus Films, Icarus Films, and INA.