CANCELED: Golden Eighties

press release: France, Belgium | 1986 | DCP | 96 min. | French with English subtitles

Akerman detours away from somber minimalism with a movie musical about the love-affairs and heartbreaks of an interconnected group of shopping-mall employees. Golden Eighties is considered by some as the unofficial sequel to Akerman’s masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, largely due to the return of leading lady Seyrig, and also for the recurring exploration of the ways in which labor becomes a coping mechanism for long simmering pain and regret. The jaunty, post-punk inspired songs (more Go-Go's than Rodgers & Hammerstein) become moving portraits of the ways in which sacrifice and compromise are all in a day’s work.

A Celebration of Chantal Akerman: Between her wunderkind arrival in the 1970s and her tragic death in 2015, Chantal Akerman was widely revered as one of cinema's most vital and fearless artists. Drawing from art cinema, ethnographic documentary, feminist theory, Jewish culture, popular genres, and the structural avant-garde, Akerman consistently rejected labels in her pursuit of a rigorous, personal cinema. Investing minute gestures, plays of light, and time itself with meaning and emotion, Akerman’s films demand the theatrical experience. This series (re)acquaints us with the genius and audacity of this singular, pioneering Belgian filmmaker.