Chantal Akerman
Chantal Akerman was a Belgian-born experimental artist, film director, and pioneer of modern feminist film. Operating in a wide range of narrative modes and traversing the entire spectrum of cinema, her films take the form of fiction, documentary, experimental video, and literary adaptation.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors and a perpetual traveller, Akerman approached the themes of memory, identity, and immigrant experience from a lived perspective. Jean-Luc Godard is widely cited as the inspiration for her life in film, and in turn Akerman has been credited with galvanizing an entire generation of avant-garde filmmakers, including Gus Van Sant, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Todd Haynes, and Michael Haneke.