The Craft: Claire Atherton

French film editor Claire Atherton traces her creative beginnings to an early interest in Chinese language and Taoist philosophy, and a gig working with Delphine Seyrig and Carole Roussopoulos at the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir in the early 1980s. The first sparked a lifelong questioning of how combining images can create new meanings, and the second occasioned her first meeting with Chantal Akerman in 1984. The newest iteration of MoMA’s series The Craft celebrates four decades of Atherton’s editing career, featuring key works from her 30-year working relationship with Akerman and more recent collaborations with Eric Baudelaire, Wang Bing, Bani Khoshnoudi, and others.

Characterized by formal precision and an openness of spirit, Atherton approaches editing as an encounter, privileging trust and intuition over predefined concept. “I’m not looking for a film to describe reality, as is often expected of documentaries, or even for it to tell a story, as is often expected of fiction films,” she has said. Deeply attentive to rhythms of image and sound, Atherton’s almost sculptural way of composing through time and space has extended beyond the cinema, beginning with her 1995 collaboration with Akerman to adapt her landmark film D’Est into a multiscreen installation.

This wide-ranging series is a testament to Atherton’s ingenuity and understated virtuosity, equally expressed in giving shape to vast image archives or guiding the steady montage that anchors durational work. Charting her contributions to contemporary Francophone and international cinema, the selection spotlights her lesser-known but no less vital collaborations with Noëlle Pujol and Andreas Bolm, Luc Decaster, Emmanuelle Demoris, and Maria Kourkouta, whose personal, adventurous, and hybrid cinematic forms are largely screening for the first time in New York.

Organized by Sophie Cavoulacos, Curator, with Francisco Valente, Curatorial Associate, Department of Film, MoMA. Thanks to Pablo de Ocampo, Director and Curator of Moving Image, Walker Art Center.

Film at MoMA is made possible by CHANEL.

Additional support is provided by the Annual Film Fund. Leadership support for the Annual Film Fund is provided by The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Agnes Gund through The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), and The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.