Là-bas

Down There

An introspective apartment-bound reflection on isolation and confinement that shows Akerman’s unique and beguiling improvisatory approach to documentary.

  • Director

    Chantal Akerman

  • France 2006. 79min

  • Digital

Making a film about Israel was initially ‘an impossible idea’. Akerman was ‘scared of the pitfalls of [her] subjectivity’. But her diary film, made while sequestered in her Tel Aviv apartment, dives into this subjectivity with static shots through window blinds accompanied by voiceover musings. Akerman plunges us into her fragile mental state. She also, as cinematographer Babette Mangolte noted, asks a question often raised in her portraits of confinement: ‘How do we live near others?’

Also available on BFI Player

+ Le Jour où...

The Day When...

Switzerland 1997. Director Chantal Akerman. 7min. Digital (restoration). English subtitles

Akerman ruminates on the future of cinema from her bed.

Restored by Royal Film Archive of Belgium (CINEMATEK), Fondation Chantal Akerman and Cinémathèque suisse.

Total running time 86min.

The screening of Là-bas on Monday 10 March 18:00 NFT2 will be introduced by Alisa Lebow, writer/filmmaker and Professor of Screen Media, University of Sussex.