First Look 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.