Les Rendez-vous d'Anna

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna
	French theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chantal Akerman
Written by	Chantal Akerman
Produced by	Alain Dahan
Starring	Aurore Clément; Jean-Pierre Cassel; Helmut Griem; Lea Massari; Magali Noël; Hanns Zischler;
Cinematography	Jean Penzer
Edited by	Francine Sandberg
Production; companies	Hélène Films; Unité Trois; Paradise Films; ZDF;
Distributed by	Gaumont
Release dates	9 October 1978 (Festival du Film de Paris); 8 November 1978 (France);
Running time	127 minutes
Countries	Belgium; France; West Germany;
Language	French

Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (known in English as The Meetings of Anna and Meetings with Anna) is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Chantal Akerman.

Plot

Anne Silver, a Belgian filmmaker, is travelling through West Germany, Belgium, and France to promote her new film. Along the way, she meets with strangers, friends, former lovers, and family members, all the while traversing an isolating and increasingly homogeneous Western Europe. Among the people she meets is her own mother, to whom she talks about falling in love with a woman who she only talks to over the phone now. At the end, she is back in her apartment, listening to messages on her answering machine, alone as ever. The calls are from various friends and/or lovers, who express frustration at her unavailability, and also a manager who wants to make sure she shows up for all of her promotional appearances. The last message is from her female lover, who is wondering where she is. Anne does not call anyone back.

Cast

Aurore Clément as Anne Silver
Jean-Pierre Cassel as Daniel
Magali Noël as Ida
Helmut Griem as Heinrich
Hanns Zischler as Hans
Lea Massari as Anne's mother

Critical reception

The movie initially was not well received, though it has since risen in prestige. Many critics found fault with what they perceived as a "scaling-back of the stylistic and thematic radicalism" to be found in Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975).^[1] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on reviews from 6 critics, with an average rating of 8/10.^[2] It received the André Cavens Award for Best Film given by the Belgian Film Critics Association (UCC).^[3]