The Cinematheque

“It moves beyond being one of the great coming-of-age films; it is simply one of the great films. A moving, multifaceted, and magical hour, presented with honesty and subtle artistry.”

David McDougall, MUBI Notebook

Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 1960s in Brussels
Portrait d’une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles
France 1994
Chantal Akerman
61 min. DCP In French with English subtitles

Chantal Akerman’s Portrait… is, like its title’s specificity suggests, as intensely observant and personally detailed as her masterpiece Jeanne Dielman. But it features the director in a completely different register, proof that she could work in any genre, at any running time, and bend the form to her own interests. Akerman’s entry in a music-driven coming-of-age film cycle (which also includes Téchiné’s Wild Reeds and Assayas’s Cold Water) shows the director looking back at her adolescence just before May ​’68. Michèle (Circé Lethem) skips school, passes time at the cinema, and returns to campus so she can spend any spare moment with her friend Danielle. Akerman’s single-day narrative culminates in a party, but before Michèle gets there she wills herself through rebellion, disillusion, and romantic expectation. If at first Akerman modified and personalized the New York structuralists, here, in just one hour, she does that for Rohmer’s contribution to the French New Wave.

DCP courtesy Chantal Akerman Foundation

“Energetic, brusque, and mercurial … The extraordinary achievement of [Portrait] is that it immediately and consistently fulfills the audacious triple dare of its title, being simultaneously about a character, a time, and a place.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker

preceded by

I’m Hungry, I’m Cold
J’ai faim, j’ai froid
France 1984
Chantal Akerman
12 min. DCP In French with English subtitles

In Akerman’s words, ​“My friend and I. A little musical comedy without singing.” The friends, new to Paris, are Maria de Medeiros (Silvestre) and Pascale Salkin (Golden Eighties).

DCP courtesy Chantal Akerman Foundation

Restored in 2024 by the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique (CINEMATEK) and the Cinémathèque française in collaboration with the Chantal Akerman Foundation, under the supervision of the director of photography, Luc Benhamou.

“A breezy and beguiling experience … Chantal Akerman was a filmmaker of singular grace and intelligence.”

Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer, Le Cinéma Club