We’re delighted to present the online premiere of Chantal Akerman’s newly restored J’ai faim, j’ai froid. The Belgian master, whose films continue to be rediscovered and magnum opus Jeanne Dielman was recently declared the Best Film of All Time in Sight & Sound’s 2022 Critics Poll, is currently the subject of a comprehensive exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris — which has also occasioned the release of a monumental 46-film box-set from the French film distributor Capricci.

J’ai faim, j’ai froid was made as part of the Paris-centric anthology film Paris vu par… vingt ans après, which featured six vignettes about six different neighborhoods in the city. Having lived in Paris for eight years at that point, Akerman saw the film as an opportunity to express how the French capital was “distorted, narrowed, and enlarged” in her head. The film’s two spirited leads — a pair of teenage girls who ditch Belgium for Paris — and their disheartening encounters with Parisian men and cafés speaks to Akerman’s own discomfort as a foreigner in the city.

 

“I come from a country where French is also spoken, from a capital city too. Everything could be the same but everything is different, it’s also this little difference that I would like to show.” CHANTAL AKERMAN

Maria de Medeiros (at 21-years old, having just starred in João César Monteiro’s Silvestre) and Pascale Salkin (who was then working with Akerman on Golden Eighties) are front-and-center in J’ai faim, j’ai froid. Their rapport — which sustains itself throughout their bitter experience in Paris — is what makes the film such a breezy and beguiling experience. And, near the end of the film when their escapade turns incontrovertibly dismaying, it is the sight of their silhouettes walking down an alleyway side-by-side in shared silence that reveals the depth of their bond.

Chantal Akerman was a filmmaker of singular grace and intelligence. In addition to her world-renowned Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), she also made many unclassifiable documentaries about unique regions of the world (Europe’s Eastern bloc in D’Est, the American South in Sud, the Mexican-American border in De l’autre côté) and people (Alfred Brendel in Franz Schubert’s Last Three Piano Sonatas, Pina Bausch in One Day Pina Asked… and Sonia Wieder-Atheron in Avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton). Her films are always a source of insight and wonder.

Text written by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer. Special thanks to Fondation Chantal Akerman and Philippe Garrel.