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First Look 2023

Mar 15 — Mar 19, 2023

First Look, MoMI’s annual showcase for adventurous new cinema, introduces New York audiences to more than two dozen works hailing from nearly as many countries, encompassing feature and short films; fiction and nonfiction; New York premieres and works in progress; experiments with—and exemplary expressions of—form. The guiding ethos of First Look is discovery, aiming to introduce audiences to new films, filmmakers to new audiences, and everyone to different methods, perspectives, interrogations, and encounters. For five consecutive days the festival takes over MoMI’s two theaters as well as other rooms and galleries throughout the Museum—with in-person appearances and dialogue integral to the experience.   

Filmmakers appearing in person will be announced later, along with the lineup for this year’s fourth annual Working on It program, daytime sessions open to the public in which filmmakers, critics, and students engage in conversations about the creative process via workshops and work-in-progress presentations. This year, First Look launches the Reverse Shot Emerging Critics Workshop, with a call for applications open to early-career writers in the Greater New York area. This year also begins a collaboration with Polish documentary festival Millennium Docs Against Gravity, with Artistic Director Karol Piekarczyk presenting two selections from their Warsaw showcase and engaging in the Working on It sessions. As in previous years, student work from both the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism and the BFA Film Department, School of Visual Arts will be presented both officially in the festival program and as works in progress.

All Festival Passes, good for all screenings including Opening Night and all Working on It sessions, are on sale now ($120); a special Weekend Pass is available for $60.

First Look is presented with support from lead sponsors MUBI; BFA Film Department, School of Visual Arts; and Lismore Road; and additional sponsors The Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism, The Harriman Institute at Columbia University, Polish Cultural Institute New York, Villa Albertine, German Film Office, Kickstarter, Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Paper Factory Hotel, Topo Chico, Pig Beach, Tacuba, Sac’s Place, and Captain Lawrence Brewing Company.

This project is supported by a grant awarded to Museum of the Moving Image by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY/New York State’s Division of Tourism through the Regional Economic Development Council initiative. Additional support was provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

array of logos for organizations supporting First Look 2023

Past Films in Series

Two women sit on a flowered couch against a lime green wall
An elderly woman in a rural, green area stands by the roadside holding a cluster of colorful balloons
A low-grade video image of a woman in a wedding dress and flowers in her hair, her profile reflected prismatically across the screen
A llama looks at the camera surrounded by purple cloudy haze
A woman holds a lime in her mouth and a lemon against her eye, with a bespectacled man behind her
A young person with long hair sits on a tree in a forest holding a phone and looking into the distance
Extreme closeup of a woman whispering in another's ear in profile
A woman in tribal makeup and headdress faces camera looking down
A woman in tribal makeup and headdress faces camera looking down
Two young people, a teenager and an adolescent, look off-screen, the older girl with her arm around the younger boy
Two women sit on a flowered couch against a lime green wall
silhouettes of hands reaching for a church window
An elderly woman in a rural, green area stands by the roadside holding a cluster of colorful balloons
Two women stand, one in foreground looks off camera to the right, the other looking at her
A young woman rests her head on a bespectacled man's shoulder in a bus station
A woman holds a lime in her mouth and a lemon against her eye, with a bespectacled man behind her
A woman with a flowery pink hat dances outside
Extreme closeup of a woman whispering in another's ear in profile
Two women sit on a ferry, huddled in the cold, a bridge in the background
A black and white closeup of a man in profile with another man in the background
A celluloid image of a drawing of a middle-eastern village
A nun stands in an empty medical facility looking at salamander cages
Women in brightly colored orange and blue saris sit cross legged on a mat under a tent outside
a mountain wth a blue shawled figure in the foreground
A low-grade video image of a woman in a wedding dress and flowers in her hair, her profile reflected prismatically across the screen
A man sits on a rooftop and looks out at a mountainous landscape, with horses grazing behind him
A red light flare streaks across a green woods against a blue sky
Two young women on a motorcycle, the one in back with arms in air
Two young women lie on a blanket outside talking to each other, the image is upside down
A black and white shot of a woman standing under a tree outdoors and facing a chair
Two men sit on the edge of a stage with filmmakers and a camera to their left and a group of people in the front row, their backs to the camera.