Director: Chantal Akerman, Belgium/ France/ Germany 1977, 85 minutes, DCP, English original version

Monday, May 5, 2025, 7 p.m.

Blue Salon, Room 012, HfG Karlsruhe

Free admission, donation requested

After living in New York in the early 1970s, Chantal Akerman returned there a few years later and created one of her most elegant, minimalist and deeply moving meditations on dislocation and alienation. In a series of precisely composed shots of Manhattan circa 1976, she reads 20 letters sent to her by her mother in the period after the 20-year-old moved there from Brussels to become a filmmaker. Brussels to become a filmmaker.

The juxtaposition of the intimacy of these domestic reports and the lonely cityscapes that Akerman captured on 16mm film together with Babette Mangolte results in a poignant reflection on personal and familial separation that is also a captivating time capsule. The film's long takes (around fifty in total) do not result in a simple compendium of detached urban images, but a kind of autobiography.

In the supporting program: A Portrait of Ga
Director: Margaret Tait, GB 1952, 4 minutes, 16mm, original version

The Kino im Blauen Salon, the student cinema of the Hochschule für Gestaltung, has been run by students since 2017 and has been a registered association since the beginning of 2024: https://kinoimblauensalon.de/de/news.

More about the film series in summer semester 2025:

Kino im Blauen Salon, the student cinema of the Hochschule für Gestaltung, invites you to the new program for the summer semester! Our film program, which was awarded 1st prize by the Deutsche Kinemathek, is now in its 18th semester! Time to take a brief look back... In our early days, cineastes were few and far between in the Blauer Salon, whereas today the room seems almost too small. But we have always remained true to our ideals: Analog film screenings in 35mm & 16mm, joint voluntary work with free admission and a relaxed HfG atmosphere. And the summer open-air cinema on the lawn in front of the HfG is already in its 6th round, this time at the end of May! So it's time not to look back, but to look forward: To another summer semester full of cinematic-poetic cinema highlights:
Our main interest this summer is poetry, because the nights are getting longer, the horizon endless and there's something in the air. But what does cinema have to do with poetry? Find out in our “Cinema Poetico” series, in which we set off on multiple narrative strands, meandering perspectives, visual detours and everything that lies between the lines. The series presents a hand-picked selection of classics and hidden gems that form the silent branches of cinema.
There are also nightly excursions with our “Midnight Movies”, the legendary Kult Sneak, experimental short film programs, workshops, specials, guests and, of course, the highlight of the cinema year, the open-air cinema in front of the HfG, under the motto “Freedom in Change”. See you soon at the movies!