D’Est

From the East

A poetic wandering travelogue made in response to the collapse of Soviet communism.

  • Director

    Chantal Akerman

  • Belgium-France 1993. 115min

  • Digital (restoration)

  • No dialogue

Sparked by the fall of the Berlin wall, this first film in a loose trilogy reveals Akerman’s restlessness and her belief that fiction and documentary were inseparable. ‘I want to take a major trip across Eastern Europe while there’s still time... [filming] all these countries in the throes of great change’. The result was one of cinema’s most essential and unorthodox travelogues, which captures the sense of uncertainty at a momentous juncture in history.

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