This double bill brings together two films directed respectively by Chantal Akerman and Jean-Pierre Gorin, both shot by cinematographer Babette Mangolte on opposite coasts of the United States, capturing fragments of life in peripheral and marginalised neighborhoods of New York and Los Angeles.

In 1973, following a chance encounter Chantal Akerman was invited to visit a juvenile rehabilitation center in Yonkers, New York, a deprived uptown neighbourhood. It was quickly agreed that she would create a film in the centre and portray the young people who frequented it through numerous interviews. This would have been Akerman’s first documentary, had the sound reels not been lost in the subway — a mishap that left the project unfinished and ultimately shelved. What remains today is a 45-minute silent edit of footage shot by Babette Mangolte, alongside a set of compelling documents: an intent note, a project description written in Akerman’s distinctively direct yet poetic style, and interviews with four of the protagonists. Now, with Akerman’s complete writings due to be translated into English for publication later this year, we feel a renewed urgency to give voice to this rare and overlooked work.

Landing on the other side of the country, My Crasy Life delves into the life of a Samoan gang in Long Beach. Mixing observational documentary and scripted fiction with the gang members, the film gives an in-depth look, far removed from the media's judgements, at this closed community with its own rules, rituals and language. Interested in the way communities are formed for themselves as well as in response to their direct environment, Gorin takes a frank and sincere look at the reality of a community caught in a complex social and urban fabric. Inscribed in the radical legacy of Flaherty, My Crasy Life gives an account of the difficulties and uncertainties endemic to the group which, faced with a hostile and destructive reality, is constantly composing and decomposing itself as it strives to stand its ground.