MOVIE · 1976

News from Home

Documentary89 min

Chantal Akerman turns her camera on 1970s New York, pairing long, carefully framed street scenes and subway rides with letters from her mother, read in Akerman’s own voice. The filmmaker remains offscreen, but the film’s central relationship stays close: her mother’s affectionate, demanding notes arrive over images of apartment blocks, storefronts, and trains, tracing the distance between family life and a city that can feel vast and impersonal. As the correspondence continues, New York becomes both a time capsule and a portrait of separation, routine, and the uneasy pull of home.