Chantal Akerman (Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), Rendezvous d'Anna (1978)) is certainly one of the most important young film directors working in Europe today, and among the leading women directors of the world. In an interview in Cahiers du Cinema, Akerman describes News from Home: “I lived (in New York) the first time for a year and a half, and during this whole time I was getting letters from my mother. In relation to what I was experiencing, in relation to New York, it was very moving. Like a kind of amorous complaint, repetitive, always accompanying me. For my mother, who is from old Europe, America is still the myth of the new America. And she was writing to her daughter who had come to America to succeed in life. Obviously it wasn't said like that, because it was very simple language, direct.... The film seems to me to be very European, it's a film of construction.... It's a film about being off-center: me and New York, which is a city without a center, and this shows up in the construction of the film. Generally speaking, but not systematically, the film is composed of shots in the subway (the subway is very important in New York, I love everything that has to do with subways, trains...) and of exteriors. And you never know where you are, never. The same construction shows up on the level of sounds, and the letters which are read voice-over. At times they disappear and I let the sounds speak, at times they're scrambled and you can't understand them, rather like a leit-motif. It's like a love song that you listen to or don't listen to, and at the same time it's like a hold that is slipping....”