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The festival’s 14th edition opens with Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse and closes with Giovanni Tortorici’s Diciannove, framing a lineup of 38 premieres, including 20 features, representing 21 countries

Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 14th edition of First Look, the Museum’s festival of new and innovative international cinema, which will take place in person March 12–16, 2025. Each year, First Look offers a diverse slate of major New York premieres, work-in-progress screenings and sessions, and fresh perspectives on the art and process of filmmaking.

The 2025 lineup will present 38 films, of which 20 are features, including 4 world premieres and 23 U.S. or North American premieres, from 21 countries. Each day will be anchored by a Showcase screening. The festival will open and close with the U.S. premieres of two scintillating debut features from the 2024 Toronto and Venice Film Festivals, Durga Chew-Bose’s lush, heart-wrenching Bonjour Tristesse...

Modern Chinese documentary echoes with radicality, with Wang Bing's “West of the Tracks” (2002) and Liu Jiayin's “Oxhide” (2005) serving as flag bearers. Zhang Mengqi is definitively part of this lineage, with “47km 2020” being the 10th instalment of a colossal documental project titled “Self-Portrait”.

Self Portrait: 47 km 2020 is screening at MoMi, as part of the First Look 2024 program

Let us begin by decoding the enigmatic title. “Self Portrait” implies an exploration of identity, yet it diverges from the self-centered, self-indulgent introspection typical of Western cinema of individuals. Instead, the author seeks to achieve it by scrutinizing her origins and intimately exploring her familial and rural environmental influences. A passive form of self-portrayal in a way. “47km”? At 47 kilometers from Suizhou, Hebei, lies her native village. An anonymous name for an everywhere village. Interesting to note that Diaoyutai village has undergone several name changes over time and now stands as only 42Km,...

First Look, Museum of the Moving Image's annual festival for cutting-edge new cinema, returns next week for their 13th edition. This year's five-day event includes 20 features representing 21 countries, and many of them from Asia – including “Achilles”, “Self-Portrait: 47 Km 2020”, “Mimang”, and more. Beyond the traditional cinema, this year's video installation in the Amphitheater Gallery also features an Asian diaspora video artist, Fiona Tan, with her 97-minute video installation, “Footsteps.”

In reflection of this year's selection, we had the opportunity to speak to Edo Choi, MoMI Associate Curator of Film and First Look Senior Programmer. Choi also frequently contributes as a freelance critic and projectionist, with pieces in Reverse Shot and Film Comment. This time around, over Zoom, we talked about what it takes to get on the First Look slate and some personal highlights from the program.

First Look 2024

This interview has been edited and redacted for clarity.

This year...

Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 13th edition of First Look, the Museum's festival of new and innovative international cinema, which will take place in person March 13–17, 2024. Each year, First Look offers a diverse slate of major New York premieres, work-in-progress screenings and sessions, gallery installations, and fresh perspectives on the art and process of filmmaking. This year's festival introduces New York audiences to more than three dozen works from around the world. The guiding ethos of First Look is openness, curiosity, and discovery, aiming to expose audiences to new art, artists 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. Each night concludes with one of five...

The annual Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look Festival has given IndieWire an exclusive “first look” at the lineup.

The 13th annual event, which takes place March 13 through 17 in Astoria, Queens, opens with the New York premiere of Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’s “Sujo,” which recently took home the Grand Jury Prize, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

The First Look Festival focuses on emerging talents and international voices, with the fest premiering 46 works, including 20 features that represent 21 countries. Highlights include Farhad Delaram’s “Achilles,” Graham Swon’s “An Evening Song (for three voices), and the U.S. premiere of Lois Patiño’s “Samsara.” Zhang Mengqi’s “Self-Portrait: 47 Km 2020,” which won the Award of Excellence winner at the 2023 Yamagata Documentary Festival, will also screen along with Shoghakat Vardanyan’s 2023 IDFA grand prize winner “1489,” the debut for the filmmaker. Returning First Look directors like Michaël Andrianaly...

“Luoluo's Youth” is the second documentary by director Luo Ziyue, also known as Luo Luo, following her debut feature “Luo Luo's Fear”, which was selected for the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in 2021. Luo Luo's second work was chosen for the competition in the second edition of the Mint Chinese Film Festival, the first women-organized Chinese film festival in the UK.

Luoluo's Youth is screening at Mint Chinese Film Festival

The film opens with a peculiar sequence of a woman deciding to practice yoga on the floor of her small kitchen. Soon, the viewer realizes that she is not only the protagonist of the documentary but also its director, Luo Luo. The woman spends her life taking care of her elderly father, occasionally looking after her granddaughter, but above all, sharing her experience with the “Folk Memory Project” members. It is essential to briefly explain the nature of this project...

Yidff 2023 presented a total of 130 films across 11 categories. In the two competition sections, International Competition and New Asian Currents, there were 2,134 entries from 120 countries and regions, out of which 15 films were selected for the International Competition and 19 films for New Asian Currents, in a total of 34 films.

The opening film following the opening ceremony was the Asian premiere of Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, directed by Sora Neo, which captured the last solo concert of the musician who passed away in March 2023. Screenings were packed, with many sold out not only for the popular competition films, but also for screenings of the Special Programs, a particularly renowned feature of Yidff. The first large-scale retrospective of Noda Shinkichi in Japan was a great success, with full house every day, attracting many film fans. As Yamagata is the first Japanese city to join the Unesco Creative Cities Network in the field of film,...

With the 67th BFI London Film Festival gearing up to start on Oct. 4, the juries for the various competitions have been named.

Leading the official competition jury is acclaimed Mexican director, producer and screenwriter Amat Escalante, who won the best director honor at the 2013 edition of the Cannes Film Festival for Heli and the Silver Lion for the best director in Venice in 2016 for The Untamed. Escalante’s latest feature, Lost in the Night, is playing in the London Film Festival’s Thrill Strand.

Joining Escalante on the main jury are Kate Taylor, program director of the 2023 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and Niven Govinden, the English novelist and author of Diary of a Film.

The films in the official competition that the trio will be judging include:

Baltimore, Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor

Dear Jassi, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar)

Europa, Sudabeh Mortezai

Evil Does Not Exist, Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Fingernails, Christos Nikou

Gasoline Rainbow,...

Everyone is invited to the 67th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express!

The BFI London Film Festival, founded in 1957, now at its 67th edition, is a renowned annual event that celebrates international and British cinema. It offers a diverse array of films, premieres, and engaging discussions, attracting filmmakers, industry professionals, and movie enthusiasts. This festival is a vital platform for promoting cinematic excellence and storytelling. Once again, this year's selection of Asian titles is rich and articulated.

Find all the Asian films and the Festival's trailer, here:

Cobweb 

In this electric meta-comedy, The Good, the Bad, the Weird director Kim Jee-Woon captures the turbulence of South Korea's film industry in the 1970s.

Evil Does Not Exist 

Drive My Car director Ryusuke Hamaguchi's new drama sees a community fighting to preserve its principles and the integrity of their natural world.

Self-Portrait: 47 Km 2020 

The eleventh instalment in Zhang Mengqi...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSGasoline Rainbow.London Film Festival have announced the films in their competitive sections, with new work by Zhang Mengqi, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, and Bill and Turner Ross included in the Official Competition, plus films by Ehsan Khoshbakht, Cyril Aris, and Chloe Abrahams up for the Documentary award.Meanwhile, the Alliance of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently returned to the bargaining table with the Writers Guild of America, with CEOs like Bob Iger, David Zaslav, and Ted Sarandos in tow. "On the 113th day of the strike—and while SAG-AFTRA is walking the picket lines by our side—we were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was,” wrote the WGA in a statement circulated to members, followed two days later by a thorough explanation of why this proposal was inadequate.

Jeymes Samuel’s sophomore feature The Book of Clarence, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki are among the titles that have been announced within the full lineup of the British Film Institute’s (BFI) 67th London Film Festival. Scroll down for the full list.

The Book of Clarence, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Lakeith Stanfield, and David Oyelowo will screen at London as a World Premiere. Running October 4-15, Lff will feature 29 World Premieres, seven International Premieres (six features and one short), and 30 European Premieres.

Eye-grabbing entries from today’s launch include headline gala screenings of May December by Todd Haynes, Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest feature Poor Things, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, and The Killer by David Fincher, the last three which make their way to London after debuts on the Lido.

Titles include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.

BFI London Film Festival has unveiled the competition line-ups for best film, best first feature and best documentary.

The 11 films competing for best film include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist; Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel; Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre and Christos Nikou’s Fingernails.

Christine Molloy returns to the competition after 2019’s Rose Plays Julie. This time she has co-directed Baltimore with frequent collaborator and partner Joe Lawlor. The pair recently directed The Future Tense which...

The festival has learned of one confirmed case of Covid-19 amongst its attendees to the opening ceremony.

The 26th Busan International Film Festival (Biff) wrapped today (October 15) with Wang Er Zhuo’s Chinese film Farewell, My Hometown and Kim Se-in’s Korean title The Apartment With Two Women winning the two New Currents awards.

The latter film picked up four other awards including actress of the year for Im Jee-ho.

The socially-distanced festival, which required Pcr tests and/or proof of full vaccination from guests, learned of one confirmed case of Covid-19 amongst its attendees to the opening ceremony, October...

The Busan International Film Festival announced joint winners in both of its prestige sections, the New Currents competition for emerging Asian filmmakers and the Kim Jiseok showcase for works by the region’s more established directors.

Korean-made “The Apartment With Two Women” and Chinese film “Farewell, My Hometown,” both first features, shared the New Currents award.

In the Kim Jiseok award section Brillante Mendoza’s boxing drama “Gensan Punch” split the first prize with Aparna Sen’s “The Rapist.” In the same section, a special mention was made for “The Bargain,” by China’s Wang Qi.

The announcements were made on Friday morning at a press conference at which festival organizers critiqued matters such as levels of audience attendance, two delayed screenings and a new community outreach program.

They confirmed that just one guest tested preliminary positive for Covid-19 while in Busan. Festival staff will be subjected to a further two weeks of additional testing.