Guide to the Jeanne Dielman Video Contest

Our Jeanne Dielman–Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest on YouTube has been a huge success, thanks to scores of filmmakers who served up more than fifty delectable entries! We’ve been amazed at the quality of the submissions, and now we need your help picking the Audience Award winner. To guide you through the nearly six hours of video, we’ve created this handy click-through catalog. We’ve also marked an admittedly eclectic array of personal favorites from the Criterion staff to get you started; feel free to post your own top picks in the comments below. More viewers rating more films will make a better contest, so please watch and rate as many films as you can to ensure that the best film wins. The deadline for ratings is October 20. Prize winners will be announced October 22.

Reconstituted Potato
A spud, uncut. By BenPPark.

Murphy Prepares Hashbrowns
In which Murphy prepares potatoes for hash-browning, using a grater. By natureblake.

Jeanne Dielman  Criterion Cooking Contest Response
Meticulous relocation of Jeanne Dielman’s rhythm and mise-en-scène, directed by Andrew J. Whittaker.

Response to Jeanne Dielman Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest
Loaf, a lovingly shot chronicle of a meatloaf being made by an experienced meatloaf maker, directed by Michael Staffieri.

Jeanne Dielman  Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest
Stylish reenactment of the meatloaf scene, un film realisé par Jason LaRay Keener.

Potato
Slow food from an unlikely perspective. By Alex Kuznetsov. STAFF PICK

Amy Elizabeth, 23 Commerce Street
This comic reenvisioning of Jeanne Dielman’s lifestyle, by BoyhoodBravery7, goes all the way. STAFF PICK

OOOOOOO! Meat-less Loaf!
Peter Rinaldi’s metafilm is megafunny. STAFF PICK

Jeanne Dielman —Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest with Bacon
We’re not sure if the dish in John Boyington’s orthographically odd ode to pork belly should be judged as a cutlet or a loaf.

Internet Potatoes for Criterion Staff—“Jeanne Dielman Cooking Contest” Entry
Watching this entry from peterrabbitphoto, we were touched by the feeling that this dish was being carefully prepared just for us.

Allison’s Response to Jeanne Dielman Criterion Cooking Contest
In Allison Almodovar’s slapstick kitchen disaster, the only thing that stays put is the camera.

I Want Potatoes for Dinner Criterion Cooking Video Contest Short
The potatoes are clearly not the point in this frantic, goofy, New Wave–inflected spoof by Nathan Sakulich and Bob Weekes.

The Meatloaf Makes Itself
If only every recipe were this easy. Our shortest entry, by ccmmovies. STAFF PICK

“Meat on Wheels”
IntotheMovies’s handheld first short film follows meatballs from start to somber finish, with one brief interruption.

Rodolfo O., North Hollywood, CA, USA
Jake Weisman responds to Jeanne Dielman’s patient focus by bringing the long take to the age of distraction.

Liver Loaf—A Jeanne Dielman Criterion Cooking Contest Response
This weirdly charming gross-out from Schumeau Productions features the most disgusting recipe ever suggested to a child.

Jeanne Dielman  Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest—“Le Temps du Poulet” by David Chien
As the elegant compositions and effective soundtrack in David Chien’s Le Temps du Poulet evoke time passing, we may forget to ask what is happening during that time.

Preheat
Sean Bryan cooks up an appealing, upbeat romantic comedy with some nice special effects and a classic Hollywood ending.

Potato Problems—A Memoir
Move over, Roger Cormanhere comes Emily Nine, asking the question, Can bad B movies make good mashed potatoes? STAFF PICK

Client Prepares Meatloaf
In this disturbing short by Patito Gigante, intimately related to Akerman’s original, the cooking is upstaged by a different, equally transfixing activity. STAFF PICK

Cats, Dogs, Meatloaf, and Mom—Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest Submission
Two cameras, two pets, one mother’s meatloaf—and who doesn’t love a mother’s meatloaf? By RaySquirrel.

Meat Loaf
Meatloaf, the horror movie, by atree3, with a bravura performance by Margaret Fabrizio. STAFF PICK

Chef Goes Bonkers
What if Jeanne Dielman’s afternoon activities included making an unidentifiable dish with her frustrating school buddies on their imaginary cooking show? By rojorotz.

Marcie Valentine 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles
We don’t know what’s going on with Marcie Valentine in scienceholiday’s entry, but whatever it is, she’s taking it out on those potatoes.

All Girls Are Not Called Barbara
Joe Rea Fontes Jr. says this ebullient mash-up is made of Fassbinder, Chaplin, Billy Wilder, and Godard, but we think it tastes a lot like Makavejev too, and there’s definitely some Cocteau and Buñuel in there. STAFF PICK

Obtaining Power
From 16-year-old filmmaking neighbors Camille and Lesley comes this murderous tale of a neglected housewife who has had enough.

Jeanne Dielman—Criterion Collection Contest Response
With this moody entry, with its Maysles-like camera work, filmmaker Tony Marsicano and his star qualify in all three categories: meatloaf, potatoes, and cutlets!

Cindy Griffith, 42 Carlton Road, Hopewell, NJ
Jon Pivko’s beautifully filmed entry is patient, intentional, and chilling. STAFF PICK

My Mom Makes Meatloaf
From the director of Beefheart Breakin’ and What the Heck? comes the biggest meatloaf you’ve ever seen, shot from a rolling kitchen-cam. By rubylampshade.

OMG, What’s Wrong with Her?
A mesmerizing experiment with time and motion. STAFF PICK

Meatloaf
Nathan A. Vollmar braises himself a lovely meatloaf, to the sounds of Mike Adams and His Dust Collectors.

Zara Bloom, 24, Los Angeles, CA
We’re not sure where Zara is going with that potato and onion concoction, but we like her attitude—and taste in great old standards.

MeatLoaf
A well-executed meatloaf, confidently chronicled by nothinghere7777.

Campfire Potatoes!
Jay Luna’s absurdist riff on Brokeback Mountain contains the most utterances of “tater” of all submissions.

Nana Cooks
Eerie ambient music and film noir lighting sets the stage for this postmortem meatloaf.

A Scene for Criterion’s Jeanne
Geoffrey Sexton’s sensitively lit, precisely framed depiction of a quiet day in the suburbs.

We Can Do It!
A boy in a Rosie the Riveter apron cooks some tasty-looking panfried potatoes with rosemary. By Susannah9100.

Two or Three Things I Know About Jeanne Dielman
Fakevampireteeth takes her assignment to heart, putting herself in the role of Jeanne Dielman and lovingly re-creating some of Akerman’s most vivid images. And her potato soup looks pretty good too!

Submission
Sean Malloy adds a bit of eschatology, and sour cream, to his mashed potatoes.

To Never Forget
Alex Newman’s moody meditation on loss, or lost love?

Video Response Jeanne Dielman Criterion Collection
Cookingqueen66’s master class in microwave technique results in a hearty potato soup.

Habibi Loaf Movie
Cookingqueen66’s second entry includes some intriguing background music and much kneading of beef (twenty years of meat-free living notwithstanding!).

Mash
A young woman mourns her sweet (potato) heart. Director Bradley Johnson sprinkles cinnamon on top.

The Engineer Makes Potatoes
Claymation chaos from animator Brian Rose; more Aardman than Akerman, but good, messy fun.

Papas con huevos (Potatoes and Eggs)
Francisco Lo pays homage to Akerman and her cinematographer Babette Mangolte, borrowing a slow 360-degree pan from their short La Chambre for this glimpse of a mother and daughter living a Jeanne Dielman life.

Ingo Incroyabuleux
Tomvonloguenewth’s portrait of a distinctly West Coast wizard who makes potatoes by magic and cocktails by hand just keeps humming along.

The New Millenium
Some people care more about movies than food, like the heroine in this slick homage to Hou Hsiao-hsien and Wong Kar-wai by Stephen Pierce Ringer. STAFF PICK

A Nice Lady Makes Potatoes
Caleb Lane juxtaposes noirish camera angles and hard shadows with soft music and an obvious love for his subject—his mother and her mashed potatoes.

Pommes de Terre Au Résistance
Sociedad Anonima’s very austere, silent document of au gratin potatoes being cooked in cupcake liners has the aesthetic of an early actuality film—or a terrorist training video.

Jeanne Dielman Cooking Contest—Bobo McBuggaboo
The Zellner brothers’ absurdly static tableau of water on the boil may try your patience, but we think the art world’s going to love it! STAFF PICK

Video Response to Jeanne Dielman
Christine Canedo and Serena Kuo’s satire of atrophied American cooking skills presents meatloaf from a kit.

Four Meat Loaf
Gregarious, carnivorous Joe leads filmmaker Matthew Holtmeier through his beef, lamb, pork, and bacon meatloaf recipe.

Response to Jeanne Dielman Criterion Cooking Video Contest
BackinBowlProduction marries a seventies Time magazine article on American women with still life compositions of the cooking process in this experimental piece.

D.J.
A mother cooks for her grown son, but when is he going to turn off that TV? By R. Kent Floyd.

Dinner for One
The drama of Peterockamo’s day-in-the-life entry is momentarily and disturbingly interrupted by Edison’s 1903 short of the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant.

Jeanne Dielman Response
Jonathanwing’s opening title card describes it best: “A mysterious tattooed woman makes a meatloaf.”

You have no items in your shopping cart