Chantal Akerman

Chantal Akerman was a Belgian filmmaker widely regarded as one of the most important directors in the history of cinema. Her film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) — a three-and-a-half hour study of a housewife's routines — was voted the greatest film ever made in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll. She was openly lesbian and her films, including Je tu il elle (1974) and I… You… He… She… (1974), engaged directly with desire, longing, and queer female subjectivity decades before such work had critical vocabulary. She died by suicide in 2015.