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Image from Constant, courtesy Beny Wagner and Sasha Litvintseva

First Look 2022

Mar 16 — Mar 20, 2022

First Look, the Museum’s acclaimed festival of innovative new international cinema, introduces New York audiences to formally inventive works that seek to redefine the art form while engaging in a wide range of subjects and styles. The festival’s eleventh edition, First Look 2022 will take place in the Museum’s two theaters, with filmmakers appearing either in person or via live video. The Working on It program, which offers a lab-like environment for works-in-progress screenings, workshops, and discussions, will take place during the day on March 16, 17, and 18.

Opening Night, on Wednesday, March 16, presents the New York City premiere of Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s Murina, a simmering, sexually charged coming-of-age tale set in scenic coastal Croatia that won the Caméra d’Or (Best First Feature) at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and was executive produced by Martin Scorsese, preceded by the New York premiere of Tsai Ming-liang’s sorrowful ode to Hong Kong, The Night. The Closing Night selection, on Sunday, March 20, is the New York premiere of Pawel Lozinski’s delightful and insightful documentary The Balcony Movie. Recipient of the Grand Prix at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival’s Critics Week (Semaine de la critique), the film was shot entirely from the balcony of Lozinski’s Warsaw apartment, which proves to be a uniquely advantageous perch for encountering the struggles and moods of the times.

Moving outside the traditional cinema space, two works by First Look alums will be presented in the Museum’s galleries: Deniz Tortum and Kathryn Hamilton’s Our Ark in the Video Screening Amphitheater and Charlie Shackleton’s As Mine Exactly, a live virtual reality experience.

Tickets & Passes:
Unless otherwise noted, tickets for individual screening programs are $15 ($11 seniors and students / $9 youth / free for MoMI members ($11 Classic members). Tickets for Opening and Closing Night are $20 ($15 for MoMI Members):

$120 All Festival Pass (including opening and closing night, and Working on It)

$60 Weekend Pass (including all programs Fri–Sun)

First Look is made possible with support from the BFA Film Department, School of Visual Arts; Kickstarter; The Harriman Institute at Columbia University; The Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism; Polish Cultural Institute New York; German Film Office; Villa Albertine; Cinema Tropical; Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program; The Paper Factory Hotel; the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Tacuba; Topo Chico; and Captain Lawrence Brewing Company. Additional support was provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.