Chantal Akerman: Filmmaker and Philosopher

Belgian auteur Chantal Akerman’s ouevre is profoundly philosophical, exploring everything from home and homelessness, work and social reproduction, self and identity, to desire in its many forms. In particular, Akerman turns her camera on contexts that had been previously neglected, such as transitional spaces like hotel lobbies and street corners as well as the domestic sphere, revealing their significance in structuring experience.

Andreja Novakovic looks at the role of rituals, gestures and habits in Akerman’s (auto)fictional worlds drawing on writers from Hegel to Butler, Beauvoir and Federici. Chantal Akerman is a fascinating philosophical reinterpretation of one of the most important directors of European experimental and independent cinema.

Andreja Novakovic is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley, USA and affiliated with the Program in Critical Theory. She is the author of Hegel on Second Nature in Ethical Life (2017).