Courtesy of Icarus

The October 2015 suicide of revered artist and filmmaker Chantal Akerman stunned the global film community and makes watching her final film all the more poignant, as No Home Movie reveals the tender intimacy of her relationship with her mother, Natalia, an Auschwitz survivor who died in 2014. The film unfolds as a series of landscapes, cityscapes, and conversations: sometimes together in Natalia’s Brussels apartment, and on other occasions long-distance via Skype. Akerman’s experimental style favors long takes, shot with a stationary camera, allowing the viewer to share her reflective space. An influential feminist, Akerman came to prominence at age 25 with 1975’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. She went on to make more than 40 features, shorts, and documentaries, as well as installations exhibited at prestigious museums.