We just watched #newsfromhome, directed by #ChantalAkerman. The movie consists of footage of New York City (walking down the street, from a cab, from a subway train, etc) with Ackerman (in voiceover) reading letters her mother sent to her while she was living in New York City. It was pretty interesting to see NYC as someone who was living there might have seen it.

In almost every letter her mother would insist that she needed to write more often (more than once a week!!), that Ackerman doesn't include enough details in her letters, and that she wishes Ackerman would come home soon. The film is an interesting sort of answer to her mom's letters, document the sorts of things she might have seen while going about her everyday life but still incredibly impersonal.

While watching I couldn't help draw a comparison to Cliopher and his family in The Hands of the Emperor, which was an interesting thing to think about in the quiet spaces where she wasn't reading any letters.