Portrait d’une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles

Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 1960s in Brussels

A semi-autobiographical ode to the melancholy of adolescence, complete with college students wandering the streets of Brussels, a superb soundtrack and hints of the French New Wave.

  • Director

    Chantal Akerman

  • With

    Circé Lethem, Julien Rassam, Joelle Marlier

  • France 1994. 61min

  • Digital

  • English subtitles

An existential coming-of-age tale about a rebellious, world-weary girl in the grip of a love triangle, and one of Akerman’s most tender and under-appreciated films. Setting her drama on the cusp of 1968’s tumult, but spurning historical accuracy, Akerman’s true desire is to reconnect with the youthful spirit of those times: heady desire mixed with disaffection and despair.

+ Hôtel des Acacias

  • Directors

    Yves Hanchar, Pierre Charles Rochette, François Vanderveken, Isabelle Willems, under guidance of Chantal Akerman and Michèle Blondeel

  • Belgium 1982. 43min

  • Digital (restoration)

  • English subtitles

A short experiment about the trials of love that Akerman co-directed with a group of students and is a precursor to many of her 1980s and 90s romances.

Restored by INSAS (Institut Supérieur des Arts), Brussels.

Total running time 104min.

The screening of Portrait d’une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles on Saturday 8 March 18:30 NFT3 will be introced by Daniella Shreir, translator of Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs and founder of Another Gaze.