First Look 2016

Now in its fifth year, First Look is a festival for eye-opening and mind-expanding international cinema. The emphasis is on innovative works that allow us to see the art form—and the world—in a new light. This year’s edition is a true cinephile’s feast, filled with works that reflect on the medium itself, that urge us to reconsider our intimate connection to the ways that we experience cinema. As always, the films in First Look cannot be easily defined. They are artisan works, expressing distinct personal visions, with a strong emphasis this year on avant-garde cinema. To engage in the new possibilities of an art form is also to engage with the past, and this edition of First Look contains an ongoing dialogue with film history, with a selection of older works in dialogue with the many premieres.

Opening night was Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia.

Programmed by Chief Curator David Schwartz and Associate Curator of Film Eric Hynes. The adventurous festival FIDMarseille, led by Jean-Pierre Rehm, is a programming partner for First Look, and guest programmers this year include Aliza Ma, program director of the Metrograph, and Mónica Savirón

Special thanks to the French Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York, the Austrian Cultural Forum, and the Polish Cultural Institute New York.