The documentary by one of the auteurs of feminist cinema, Chantal Akerman, about Pina Bausch – One Day Pina Asked… – is screening at Kundura Sinema this weekend. Made in 1983, the film will be shown in a restored print as part of a program prepared especially for International Dance Day on April 29 in tribute to the legendary dancer and choreographer we lost in 2009, Pina Bausch: “For the Love of Dance: Pina Bausch”.

Unlike any other film made about dance or choreography, this documentary brings together two of the most remarkable women artists of the 20th century and portrays Pina Bausch and the work of her company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, through the eyes of Chantal Akerman.

“The first time I saw one of Pina’s performances, I was overcome by a feeling I couldn’t quite define,” says Akerman, and she builds the film’s point of departure on precisely this indefinability. One Day Pina Asked… becomes an attempt to describe this feeling by journeying into the depths of Bausch’s world.

Recording the company’s rehearsals and performances during a five-week European tour, Akerman takes us on a fascinating journey into Pina’s creative world and her unwavering search for love.

Observing the dancers backstage and in their dressing rooms as they get dressed, put on makeup and sing, Akerman talks about Bausch with the dancers, whom Bausch chose not only for their talents but also for certain intangible personal qualities. The camera, which never leaves their side throughout the tour, captures the dancers’ development and how they discover in their own stories the autobiographical details that Bausch so often built into her performances.

Seeking to get to know, through the eyes of her dancers, an artist who set out to explore personal memory and human relationships with her striking dances and elaborate stagings, Akerman uses long takes and meticulous compositions, and sees from the heart the autobiographical details that Bausch so often built into her performances.

The film also features cult Bausch performances such as “Komm Tanz Mit Mir” (Come Dance with Me, 1977), “Nelken” (Carnations, 1982), “Walzer” (1982) and “1980” (1980).

The New Yorker’s Richard Brody compares the film with Wim Wenders’s 2011 film “Pina” and praises it in these words: “Akerman’s film is a work of modestly audacious curiosity, discovery and inspiration. With its daring compositions, its decisive editing and its sense of time that quivers like a taut string – and with its austere simplicity – it conveys what ‘3-D Pina’ could not: the instantaneous ecstasy of the moment of creation.”

Meanwhile, the Chicago Reader’s Ben Sachs says: “Astonishing! With ‘One Day Pina Asked…’ Akerman reaches new levels of sensuality and emotional directness. Using long takes and meticulous compositions, she encourages us to consider how the dancers’ bodies look. She turns Bausch’s ideas into flesh and blood.”

You can watch “One Day Pina Asked…” at Kundura Sinema on April 29 and 30. For more information and tickets, click here.