Chantal Akerman

Chantal Anne Akerman (; 6 June 19505 October 2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York. She is best known for her films Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), News from Home (1977), and Je Tu Il Elle (1974); the first of these was ranked the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound magazine's 2022 "Greatest Films of All Time" critics poll, making her the first woman to top the poll. The latter two films also rank lower in the same poll. According to multiple critics and film scholars, Akerman's influence on feminist and avant-garde cinema is substantial, with at least one scholar calling her "one of the most significant directors of our times." Early life and education Akerman was born in Brussels, Belgium, to Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland. She was the older sister of Sylviane Akerman, her only sibling. Her mother, Natalia (Nelly), survived for years at Auschwitz, where her own parents were murdered. From a young age, Akerman and her mother were exceptionally close, and her mother encouraged her to pursue a career rather than marry young.