Chantal Akerman is probably the most important feminist filmmaker in Europe today. Born in 1950 in Brussels, Akerman learned filmmaking essentially on her own and had completed her first film, Saute Ma Ville, by the time she was 18 years old. In 1971 she came to the United States where an encounter with the work of Michael Snow constituted the second decisive influence on her work, after Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot le Fou. In all of her films, Akerman expands the notion of cinema beyond the limitations of traditional narrative form. Her feature films include Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Rendezvous d'Anna. Toute une Nuit, Akerman's most recent feature, follows dozens of "mini-dramas" that take place during one night in Brussels. Akerman's camera follows the characters through the bars, apartments, restaurants and streets of the city she knows best, though she admits, "in Toute une Nuit I made something not too realistic, which is not exactly the case with my other films. The English would call it 'a fantasy movie'" (trans. from an interview in Cahiers du Cinema). Variety notes Akerman's "sly sense of humor," and French critic Alain Philippon writes, "Toute une Nuit: this is a comédie sentimentale treated as a choreographed dance. Moreover: it is a film about the urgency of amorous desire...also: a film about the urgency of the desire to film. The couples turn, Akerman films" (trans. from Cahiers du Cinema). Toute une Nuit has almost no dialogue-approximately 50 words, according to Akerman, who provides a written translation for tonight's screening.